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Re: puff pieces vs tough crypto issues (Re: Singapore TOILET ALERT)
On Wed, Oct 22, 1997 at 02:23:29PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> At 14:06 -0400 10/22/97, Jonah Seiger wrote:
> >While I suspect that new key recovery or CMR products may create some new
> >traction for supporters of mandatory GAK, PGP 5.5 is not the first example
> >of such a product (TIS has been marketing key recovery products for a
> >while).
>
> Of course TIS has been doing this forever. But TIS, a shop staffed by
> former NSA spooks, is not the PGP that Phil Zimmermann founded. For PGP to
> release such a product changes the political dynamic in important ways.
>
> >More importantly though, the Blaze et al study
> >(http://www.crypto.com/key_study) did not say that key recovery/key escrow
> >systems can't be built.
>
> In fact it said: "Building the secure infrastructure of the breathtaking
> scale and complexity that would be required for such a scheme is beyond the
> experience and current competency of the field." Sounds like "can't be
> built" to me.
In that case, it is completely inaccurate to call PGP5.5 an existence
proof. In any case, the Blaze et al paper explicitely acknowledges
that there is a "business case" for corporate level key recovery, and
clearly distinguishes the LEA infrastructure model from more limited
cases.
> I agree that PGP 5.5 doesn't meet the FBI's demand for realtime access. But
> it can be used as a waving-around-on-the-House-floor prop to pass a law
> that requires mandatory key escrow.
They could wave around TIS's products (designed by noted cypherpunk
Carl Ellison, I believe), or NorTel's Entrust, just as well. Hell, in
a few months they may be able to wave around Adam Backs CDR product,
which also facilitates GAK -- access to communications is worse than
access to data, by some measure, but the LEA's will certainly be
grateful to Adam for his legitimization of Key Escrow...
--
Kent Crispin "No reason to get excited",
[email protected] the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html