Michael Froomkin <mfroomki@umiami.ir.miami.edu> writes:
A disadvantage of this ingenious proposal is that it makes it even more difficult to spot rogue key-cracking efforts. If you are an honest government employee and you come across a key cracking program today, and you work for a domestic TLA you know something funny is going on. "Just routine" will be line henceforth...
Yeah, but that _doesn't matter_. The domestic TLA can't afford to embark on massive, wholesale fixing expeditions this way, even _with_ the escrowed part. The point is to fix the unescrowed part at such a size that they can afford to crack a limited number of keys in a reasonable interval. Say, at a cost of about $10000 / key. That's peanuts for an OKBomb or WTC bomb case, but it gets to be expensive (hard to hide the expense) if you're fishing for dirt on members of the opposition party, or investigating 14 year-old Black Panthers. It also suggests some interesting (and admittedly, abusable) TV shows. "type this number into your ``America's Most Wanted'' official Screen Saver key finder..."