From: Lizard <lizard@dnai.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 1997 13:39:12 +0800
To: Tim May <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Keepers of the keys
Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970718221924.00aea760@dnai.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 10:10 PM 7/18/97 -0700, Tim May wrote:
>All of this brainstorming about who might be the best choice to hold
>"escrowed" keys, a la the reporter stooge Shea, or about requiring the Feds
>to use the same escrow system, misses this basic point. And plays into
>their hands.
>
>Kill the key grabbers and all those who support them. Isn't it exactly what
>Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and the others would have argued?
>
Sure. And that is, of course, the bottom line. But even if I was a rabid
national security freak, I'd *still* oppose key escrow, because it makes
the nation *less* secure. It's a loser on both liberty *and* security
grounds, and, since the liberty issue has already been conceded, the
(political) battleground is security. The "key escrow exposes us to spies"
meme has the capability to graft into the same mental reception points that
the "key escrow will save us from terrorists" meme is currently attached
to, much as 'blocker' viruses can prevent other viruses from infecting cells. 

If I were heading the NSA/CIA/FBI/etc, I'd be putting my budget into
getting ringers onto every BBS, every IRC channel, every 'warez' group,
every mailing list, everywhere, not wasting time on 'key escrow' when the
people I'd be most interested in tracking would never ever in a million
years turn their key over to the government. I'd be infiltrating,
subjerting, and getting keys the old fashined way -- by tricking people
into giving them to me. A key can be a gigabit in length and still be
cracked just by watching what someone types in to decode a message, and the
technology to do *that* is decades old, as are, sadly, the wiretap laws to
permit it. The "legitimate needs of law enforcement" are already far too
well served by existing holes shot in the Constitution -- there is no need
to make more, and doing so will defeat the putative aims of the hawks, as well.