CDR: Re: Zero Knowledge changes business model to Split Key Escrow(NSA-Key (press release)

[Tim May]

At 11:54 AM -0800 10/31/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>On Tue, 31 Oct 2000, Tim May wrote:
>
>  >
>>By building precisely the tools they and other governments would need
>>to implement such a system, you are making such a system more likely
>>to happen.
>
>'scuse me, but this gets a big raspberry.  The tools governments would
>need to implement such a system are already out there, in droves and
>gobs.  What ZKS does or does not contribute to that brew has little to
>do with whether broken security gets rammed down everyone's throats or
>not.

And I disagree with your big raspberry. Suppose auto makers started 
building in the "radio signal ignition cutoff" feature that has been 
discussed here, where a remote signal can disable a running vehicle. 
Suppose that this is done without any legal regime in place to give 
law enforcement access. Would it be fair to say that building this 
technology into a product has made it more likely that lawmakers 
would make such a system mandatory?

I think the answer is clearly "Yes."

This is why Cypherpunks were so adamantly against PGP/NAI building-in 
the capability for escrowing of keys.

>
>Asking for crypto systems that cannot be used in such plans is a lot
>like asking for bricks that cannot be used to build unsound structures.
>Somebody might be able to develop such a brick: but it wouldn't be a
>general, flexible component, and there'd be so many *sound* structures
>you couldn't build with it, or had to expend a lot of head-sweat figuring
>out *how* to build with it, that all the construction workers would
>hate it and ignore it to death.

I think you are missing the point. Think in terms of the ignition 
cutoff example above, or similar examples involving building video 
surveillance into hotel rooms, or building keystroke capture and 
storage tools into PCs, whatever. No one is suggesting limiting 
research into video technology, for example, just saying it's a Very 
Bad Idea for hotels or apartment buildings to build-in a capability 
very widely which could then be mandated by law at some later time.

(Loosely related to why so many folks fear gun registration: gun 
registration often has led to gun confiscation.)


>
>I think that crypto tools ought to support whatever the hell crypto
>operations the people using them want.  Including third party access
>to keys and the use of monoalphabetic substitution ciphers to encrypt
>correspondence if they're stupid enough to want that.


Yes, people and companies should be free to do as they wish. I've 
never claimed otherwise...nowhere have I said that ZKS should be 
constrained by men with guns to not develop such products!

However, others of us are free to comment on the dangers of company 
plans and to urge changes in policies. Sounds fair to me.

--Tim May




-- 
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon"             | black markets, collapse of governments.