New PGP "Everything the FBI ever dreamed of"

Ryan Anderson randerso at ece.eng.wayne.edu
Sat Oct 4 10:01:35 PDT 1997



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At 12:52 AM 10/4/97 -0500, amp at pobox.com wrote:
>
>Though I hate the conmcept of key escrow, it actually makes sense for 
>corporations to be able to have access to internal documents. Why they 
>think having key escrow in place will stop people from being able to use 
>other encryption as well is beyond me. I guess it's the same (stupid) 
>mentality of the feds. They don't think anyone would be smart enough to use 
>the escrowed encryption a a wrapper for the non-escrowed encryption.

The idea behind escrow in a company is to let each employee have their own 
key (and secret key/pass-phrase) so that they can digitally sign e-mails, and 
send encrypted e-mail, but with the escrow to let other people access this 
mail.  This is not any more surveilance than already exists in a corporate 
environment, and I believe it's main purpose is *not* inside the corporation, 
but for secure communications with people in other companies, typically 
partners, suppliers, clients, etc.

I can't see a problem with it in this situation.

Oh, and one of the bills in Congress seemed to prohibit the US Government 
from using escrow in this way in government agencies.  I can't see a 
justification for this.  [Other than normal FOI reasons.]  Think military 
communicating with weapons contractors if you need an excuse for this kind of 
encryption in the first place.
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Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0
Charset: noconv

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8NW/QnyRAgcZCyirt1fKfSCGk44K1GFjal0AeX10AM0x+58tYvCTEHjXUa5Pap/6
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=pF3Z
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Ryan Anderson - <Pug Majere>     "Who knows, even the horse might sing" 
Wayne State University - CULMA   "May you live in interesting times.."
randerso at ece.eng.wayne.edu         
PGP Fingerprint - 7E 8E C6 54 96 AC D9 57  E4 F8 AE 9C 10 7E 78 C9
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