I'm watching a CNBC report about the NASDAQ market and proposed fixes to certain alleged abuses about stock recommendations, bid-ask spreads, brokers, etc. One of the "industry" proposals involving taping the phone calls of NASDAQ brokers. (The proposal: 10% of all calls to customers would be recorded for later review.) It occurs to me that wider taping/interception of communications could be a consequence of a wide move toward "key escrow." And not just by governments. Once communications are "escrowed," the infrastructure for gaining access to communications is available. Thus, professional associations may request access, as with the NASDAQ talk of tapping the phone calls of brokers. (To be clear, this is a tapping system which NASDAQ dealers would have to agree to deploy in order to keep their affiliation; as this is ostensibly a voluntary, non-coerced, private arrangement, I don't argue it should be outlawed. I don't like it, but my concern is elsewhere: namely, the temptation to use a GAK system for these and similar purposes.) The whole infrastructure of mandatory voluntary key escrow could allow all sorts of special interest groups to ask for access and insist upon it with their members, customers, and affiliates. A danger to think about. Even if the non-government gakkings are ostensibly voluntary, the effect would be a sea change in expectations of communications privacy, with the key escrow infrastructure used to give access to formerly secure communications to growing numbers of groups. --Tim May Boycott "Big Brother Inside" software! We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, we know that that ain't allowed. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Licensed Ontologist | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."