On Tue, Oct 06, 1998 at 04:32:07PM -0500, William H. Geiger III wrote:
In <3.0.5.32.19981006110801.0088a430@m7.sprynet.com>, on 10/06/98 at 11:08 AM, David Honig <honig@sprynet.com> said:
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Microsoft Corp.'s (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) WebTV Networks today announced it is the first U.S. company to obtain government approval to export nonkey recovery-based 128-bit-strength encryption for general commercial use. WebTV Networks pioneered low-cost access to the Internet, e-mail, financial services and electronic shopping through a television set and a standard phone line.
The WebTV(TM) Network service, combined with the WebTV-based Internet terminals and receivers, is the first communications system permitted by the U.S. government to provide strong encryption for general use by non-U.S. citizens in Japan and the United Kingdom. Such strong encryption allows Japanese and United Kingdom subscribers of WebTV to communicate through the WebTV Network (both within national borders and internationally) without fear of interception by unauthorized parties.
I have my doubts on this. I find it highly unlikely that the FEDs would approve this without some form of GAK built in even if it is not in the form of "key recovery".
It's probably a lot closer to the "private doorbell" scenario. The only thing that a WebTV unit will communicate with is the WebTV service (or the Japanese variant thereof). Since all traffic goes through a point that will likely cooperate with law enforcement (and has remote control of the boxes, too.), this doesn't represent much of a loosening in the export controls. It's probably as good as or better than any other Microsoft crypto, though. Jon Leonard