[cryptography] Key escrow 2012

[Marsh Ray]

(Nod to the rest of what you said)

On 03/25/2012 11:45 AM, Benjamin Kreuter wrote:
> The US government still wants a
> system where encrypted communications can be arbitrarily decrypted,
> they just dress up the argument and avoid using dirty words like "key
> escrow."

Aside from the deep moral and constitutional problems it poses, does  
anyone think the US Govt could have that even from a practical perspective?

* Some of the largest supercomputers in the world are botnets or are held 
by strategic competitor countries. This precludes the old key shortening 
trick.

* The Sony PS3 and HDMI cases show just how hard it can be to keep a  
master key secure sometimes. Master keys could be quite well protected,  
but from a policy perspective it's still a gamble that something won't go 
wrong which compromises everyone's real security (cause a public scandal, 
expose industrial secrets, etc.).

* Am I correct in thinking that computing additional trapdoor functions to 
enable USG/TLA/LEA decryption is not free? Mobile devices are becoming the 
primary computing devices for many. People may be willing to pay XX% in 
taxes, but nobody wants to pay a decrease in performance and battery life 
to enable such a misfeature.

- Marsh
_______________________________________________
cryptography mailing list
cryptography at randombit.net
http://lists.randombit.net/mailman/listinfo/cryptography

----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE