From: "Phillip M. Hallam-Baker" <hallam@ai.mit.edu>
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 07:20:48 +0800
To: "Declan McCullagh" <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: Keepers of the keys
Message-ID: <199707182231.SAA16735@life.ai.mit.edu>
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> Declan, what would you think if the actual keepers of the keys,
>so to speak, were the courts, such as the Administrative Office of the
>US Courts?  That would at least seem to reduce a lot of the possible
>privacy concerns.  One has the sense that once they get into the hands
of
>the varius agencies, they'll get back out.

It has no real effect. The problem is that corporations have very
good reason to expect governments to abuse key escrow. The
Nixon administration showed that the President of the US was
capable of ordering the burglary of his opponents offices. Since
the President appoints the Supreme court this is a pretty direct
demonstration that nobody can be trusted.

The concerns for foreign corporations are even greater. France
openly boasts about its commercial espionage. It also murders
its political opponents by planting bombs on civilian ships. Any
foreign corporation operating in that company must expect a
concerted effort to disclose its trade secrets to its French
competitors.

People in the security industry are paid to be paranoid, to reduce
risk to the lowest possible. If your security model does not trust the
CEO of the company concerned absolutely why should minor
officials of the US government be trusted?

    Phill





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