From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 07:25:22 +0800
To: Duncan Frissell <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: But what about the poor?
Message-ID: <199607021705.KAA17479@mail.pacifier.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 06:37 AM 7/2/96 -0400, Duncan Frissell wrote:
>At 11:25 PM 7/1/96 -0700, Bill Frantz wrote:
>
>>Current government "Key Escrow" systems cost $200/key/year. [Craig Mundie] 
>>These systems can best be described as key-rental systems.
>
>This is shocking, shocking.

Oh, but what a business opportunity!  I assume a floppy can hold 1000 keys.  
Even if I undercut the going rate of $200 per year by a factor of 10, that's 
a potential income of $20,000 per floppy per year.  A box of 20 floppies on 
the shelf, and I'm set for life!


>This argument against key escrow never made it onto that long list of
>questions we made up in the Spring of '93 when Key Escrow was first proposed
>by the Admin (it was probably Vince Foster's fault).  We showed a lack of
>imagination.

There's no doubt that the government will want to bribe the escrow agents, 
first to tolerate the system at all, and second to foster enthusiastic 
cooperation later on, and possibly even ILLEGAL cooperation.  Over-paying 
them is just one way to do it.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how the government can continue 
to ignore the likelihood (hell, certainty!) that since "key escrow" will 
only be attractive to the extent it actually benefits the user, such users 
will be served by escrow agents who store only encrypted  or 
anonymously-held keys.  These are inherently protected against any kind of 
disclosure, yet provide all the claimed benefits of key escrow.

Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com