Re: Clinton nixes domestic encryption right

Robert Hettinga wrote:

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X-Sender: tbell@cato.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 17:10:46 -0400 Reply-To: Law & Policy of Computer Communications Sender: Law & Policy of Computer Communications From: "Tom W. Bell" Subject: Re: Clinton nixes domestic encryption right To: CYBERIA-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM

Phill writes:

...

Stuart Baker claims that Gore is the main administration supporter of GAK. But others have claimed the exact opposite. I suspect that if Gore really supported the GAK idea he would do so publically and explicitly, its a vote winner.

For what it's worth, I had dinner Monday with two people from Gore's office and one of Microsoft's officers. The Gore people consistently demanded mandatory key escrow, though they seemed willing to allow private parties to do the job so long as GAK remained an option. The Microsoft person only went so far as to offer to always make key escrow a *feature*

"Sir, the government getting your keys *isn't* a bug, it's a feature in case you have to recover them. Will the government use them illegally? No, sir, why would they want to do that?"

, arguing that this would in practice get the administration all the GAK it wants because almost everyone would want to escrow their private keys.

ROFLMAO.

The debate unfolded something like this:

Gore people: "People using really strong encryption will *want* to escrow their keys. Otherwise, lost keys will result in irretrievably lost data."

And so that gorny geeks at the NSA can read mails relating to a grope in the store room.

MS person: "Oh, sure--especially commerical players. But you underestimate the amount of resistance *mandated* escrowing will create. People want to *choose* to escrow. If you let them, they will."

I choose to never escrow my keys. It's my business, no one elses to read my mail.

Gore people: "Well, if they're going to escrow anyhow, what's the problem with mandating it?"

MS person: "You don't get it. Our customers care deeply about their encryption rights, and we want happy customers. If the administration will just back off, it will get what it wants--or, at least, as much as it can at any rate expect."

It presented a classic case of cultural conflict--in this case, political cultural confronting commercial culture.

To quote TV's Butt-Head, from Beavis & Butt-head: "Some people are dumb."

Tom W. Bell ----------- tbell@cato.org Director, Telecommunications and Technology Studies The Cato Institute

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----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/