From: "Trei, Peter" <ptrei@securitydynamics.com>
Date: Fri, 8 May 1998 12:03:43 -0700 (PDT)
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: DoD orders vendors to use Key "Recovery"
Message-ID: <6B5344C210C7D011835C0000F8012766017A75E6@exna01.securitydynamics.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



I hope someone sends them the NSA report on the security hazards of
KR. 

Peter Trei
ptrei@securitydynamics.com

---------------
http://www.gcn.com/gcn/1998/May4/cov1.htm

GCN May 4, 1998 

Defense wants PKI now 
Department intends to make vendors use strong encryption 
By Christopher J. Dorobek 

To jump-start development of a public-key recovery system, the Defense
Department plans to require its vendors to use strong encryption,
deputy Defense secretary John Hamre said recently.

Because it wields significant buying clout, Defense's more stringent
requirements should boost government and industry efforts to build
systems for managing encryption keys, Hamre said last month at an
Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association event in
Washington.

Agencies cannot wait for the government and industry to settle on a
national encryption policy, Hamre said.

Through successive administrations, the government has tried to
develop a singular policy on encryption. But so far, the efforts have
failed.  Generally, industry has criticized the government's policy
proposals as too restrictive.

"We have an important national imperative to protect ourselves in this
world," Hamre said. "We can't wait to have this issue resolved ...
therefore we're going to buy encryption with key recovery."

Vendors will have to use encrypted data and be able to recover it when
doing business with DOD, he said.

Defense will work out a final policy in the coming weeks, Hamre said.

[...]