Re: The GAK Momentum is Building...

[Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>]

Lucky Green wrote:
> On Wed, 18 Sep 1996, Jim Ray wrote:
> I agree, and hope so. "Key Recovery," while not as Orwellian-sounding 
> as "GAK," is a step on the path to honesty WRT the English language,
> though it's important to continually point out, as Tim did in his
> post, that *access* -- rather than just recovery -- is obviously what 
> Mr. Freeh wants.
> I'd count this likely change in terminology as a "cypherpunk victory,"
> albeit a very small and certainly a very hard-fought one.

> Nope. It is a Cypherpunk loss. The use of the term "key recovery" for 
> GAK now fully obfuscates the distinction between accessing a
> backup copy by the legitimate owner (or his estate, employer, etc.)
> and GAK. Many PKIs will support the former type of key recovery. And
> for good reasons. Thanks to the brainwashers using the same term for
> GAK, it will now become impossible to tell from a basic description of 
> a PKI if it supports GAK or not. Furthermore, those who oppose the
> latter type of key recovery (us!), will be pushed further into the
> fringe by the media now being able to mix up our arguments against GAK 
> with arguing against true key recovery. [Do you notice the weird
> constructs I have to use to distinguish the two meanings? One of them 
> being new...]
> --Lucky

My comment: Once the big Corp.'s get used to the new game, they'll put 
the non-critical stuff out there for Mr. Freeh, and for the really 
secret data, if the cops confiscate anything they can't read, the Corp. 
security will put it off on a fall-guy, even as high as the CEO if 
necessary. I just wanna see one case where a federal judge will try to 
bleed a big company for contempt for "refusing" to decode and hand over 
some ostensibly encrypted data. Matter of fact, there are probably cases 
similar to this that have already been through the appeals courts.