From: Zooko Journeyman <zooko@xs4all.nl>
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 1997 07:16:23 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: GAK, CAP, "escrow", "recovery" -- Minitru has us so confused we fight amongst ourselves
Message-ID: <199710102307.BAA02313@xs2.xs4all.nl>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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The whole goal of the hijacking of the phrase "key escrow" to 
camoflage GAK was to obscure the difference between voluntary 
and involuntary participation.


Unfortunately, while Clipper and successors have been policy 
failures, that initial push to conquer important conceptual 
ground has been a devastating success.  Now good guys from
both sides of the PGP CAP debate appear to have forgotten
this essential distinction.  Jon, I started reading your list
of ways that PGP CAP differs from USG GAK, and it was about
"software versus hardware" or something.  Screw that-- is it
voluntary or is it not?


Of course it is voluntary.  PGP, Inc. has no deal with USG or 
any other agency to the effect that user's secrets will be 
involuntarily (by threat, force or secrecy) copied.  So forget
about all those details and make the point-- PGP helps people
control their own data, including voluntarily sharing their 
data with others.  This is almost entirely unrelated to GAK.


One more time for the slow folks at home (journalists 
especially, listen up!):


Escrow is when you voluntarily choose to share your property 
with someone else, especially as part of a business contract 
that you have with that person to the effect that she won't 
use your property for anything but will merely hold your
property in order to give it back to you or to a third party 
in response to certain events transpiring.


The word "escrow", coined sometime in the 16th or early 17th 
centuries, has held this meaning and only this meaning 
throughout the intervening centuries.


Someone getting access to your secrets against your will, 
whether by trickery, threat of force, or burglary is not 
escrow.  At least, not until the USG deliberately chose to 
abuse that word to throw a mask of legitimacy upon its rotten 
idea of mandatory wiretapping for all digital communication.


Damn, but it is frustrating to see such a bare-faced newspeak
gambit succeed so brilliantly against otherwise literate 
people.  Everyone should read George Orwell's paper on (ab)use 
of language in politics.  None of the examples he cites are
nearly as worthy of Minitru as is this single conceptual 
hijacking.


Regards,

Zooko

P.S.  Of course there are subtleties that I omitted from this 
rant.  It wouldn't be a good rant if I calmly enumerated the
various legitimate perspectives now would it?  Maybe PGP CAP is
a bad idea.  Maybe it will lead to GAK.  Maybe corporations are
a bad idea.  Maybe they will lead to governments.  But whether
or no, use of PGP and PGP features (including escrow features)
is voluntary.  GAK is not voluntary.  GAK is not escrow.  
Please help me put a stake through the heart of this vile meme.