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1997-10-22 - Re: puff pieces vs tough crypto issues (Re: Singapore TOILET ALERT)

Header Data

From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
To: Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org>
Message Hash: 312be06b70f8b09c01849a531f938968521c54bf36b0e84c6d4cffef289f7ea2
Message ID: <v0300780eb073f3f9431f@[168.161.105.141]>
Reply To: <v03007808b073c711fcb1@[204.254.22.221]>
UTC Datetime: 1997-10-22 18:41:58 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 02:41:58 +0800

Raw message

From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 02:41:58 +0800
To: Jonah Seiger <jseiger@cdt.org>
Subject: Re: puff pieces vs tough crypto issues (Re: Singapore TOILET  ALERT)
In-Reply-To: <v03007808b073c711fcb1@[204.254.22.221]>
Message-ID: <v0300780eb073f3f9431f@[168.161.105.141]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



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.

>So far, Soloman, the FBI, nor other mandatory GAK supporters have said that
>PGP 5.5 or other key recovery products on the market today solve their
>so-called 'problems'.  I don't really expect them to. They seem to want
>much much more.

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.

-Declan

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