Here is what leading cryptographers say about email key recovery, from http://www.crypto.com/key_study/report.shtml. This includes respected figures like Bruce Schneier, Matt Blaze, Ron Rivest, Ross Anderson, Whit Diffie, and more. 2.1 Communication Traffic vs. Stored Data While key ``recoverability'' is a potentially important added-value feature in certain stored data systems, in other applications of cryptography there is little or no user demand for this feature. In particular, there is hardly ever a reason for an encryption user to want to recover the key used to protect a communication session such as a telephone call, FAX transmission, or Internet link. If such a key is lost, corrupted, or otherwise becomes unavailable, the problem can be detected immediately and a new key negotiated. There is also no reason to trust another party with such a key. Key recoverability, to the extent it has a private-sector application at all, is useful only for the keys used to protect irreproducible stored data. There is basically no business model for other uses, as discussed below. In stored data applications, key recovery is only one of a number of options for assuring the continued availability of business-critical information. These options include sharing the knowledge of keys among several individuals (possibly using secret-sharing techniques), obtaining keys from a local key registry that maintains backup copies, careful backup management of the plaintext of stored encrypted data, or, of course, some kind of key recovery mechanism. The best option among these choices depends on the particular application and user. Encrypted electronic mail is an interesting special case, in that it has the characteristics of both communication and storage. Whether key recovery is useful to the user of a secure E-mail system depends on design of the particular system. The government, on the other hand, proposes a key recovery infrastructure that applies to virtually all cryptographic keys, including (especially) those used to protect communications sessions. They say that key recovery is not appropriate for transient keys used during a communication session. However, email is a special case, having characteristics of both communication and storage. In some systems, email may be archived for long periods of time in the same format that it was received. For such systems there is a business case for key recovery in email.