From: SDN <sdn@divcom.slimy.com> William H. Geiger III wrote:

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David Honig said:

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http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/981005/ca_microso_1.html

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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.

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.

Hmmm... # http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/981005/ca_microso_1.html # # ...without fear of interception by unauthorized parties. Said with a lawyer's precision. # http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/981005/ca_microso_1.html # # William Reinsch, U.S. undersecretary for export administration: # ``The WebTV Network provides secure communications for its # customers and partners without posing undue risks to # national security and law enforcement.'' Either it is interceptable and decodable or it isn't. If it isn't, then software browsers (Netscape/IE) should be allowed to do it too. Perhaps Declan could investigate and get a story out of it. ---- Can someone with control of a 128-bit HTTP server see if it can identify 128-bit keys from WebTV terminals? ---guy