I found this in RISKS. Apparently, law enforcement types are approaching software vendors and seeking backdoors and other compromises. Note that Lotus is a licensee of RSA, so the encryption algorithms worrying the FBI are probably the main RSA algorithms. Cypherpunk activities are becoming more important than ever. -Tim May From: risks@CSL.SRI.COM (RISKS Forum) Subject: RISKS DIGEST 14.29 Date: 27 Jan 93 22:05:31 GMT ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 20 Jan 93 17:58:49 EST From: joltes@husc.harvard.edu Subject: The FBI and Lotus cc:Mail An interesting tidbit came to light while I was attending a demonstration of Lotus' cc:Mail and Notes products at the Boston NetWorld this month. During the Notes portion of the presentation someone asked how secure the information in the various databases was, and how the encryption was done. The presenter said that the data was considered very secure, so much so that the FBI had approached Lotus to ask that a "back door" be left in the software in order to give the Bureau a method for infiltrating suspects' filesystems. She said they were specifically targeting "drug dealers and other bad people." Given this backdoor, what was to stop the Bureau from inspecting confidential materials on any system? The risks seem obvious. Additionally, it makes one wonder how many other vendors of supposedly "secure" software have been similarly approached by various Federal organizations, and how many have agreed to create the back doors as requested. Happily, the presenter said that Lotus refused to honor the FBI's request. Bravo! Dick Joltes, Manager, Networks and Hardware, Harvard University Science Center joltes@husc.harvard.edu ------------------------------