From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
To: Duncan Frissell <cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 5a62336bc62158fe2cfdd25d15f0958fdec24c2bbd430b1070c886448f9ad4cc
Message ID: <199607021705.KAA17479@mail.pacifier.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1996-07-02 23:25:22 UTC
Raw Date: Wed, 3 Jul 1996 07:25:22 +0800
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
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1996-07-02 (Wed, 3 Jul 1996 07:25:22 +0800) - Re: But what about the poor? - jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>