I remember running into a case where there was a system in place that
   worked somewhat like an encrypted CVS system. There was a central
   document czar, like you said, and when he left, the company realized
   how foolish it was to put a single employee in charge of the key. So
   then (not seeming to have truly learned from their mistakes) they gave
   copies of the new private key to members of the executive team. Then an
   executive left. I will not soon forget hearing of thousands of pages of
   documentation being systematically decrypted with the old key, and
   re-encrypted with a new key. The process apparently took quite an
   amount of time. I also remember my squeamishness about the fact that
   the CVS-like system was designed to encrypt and decrypt on the fly
   based on some cheesy authentication, so as to provide a way to maintain
   this system without having to talk to the key holders every time you
   needed to make a change. The entire system was a big messy nightmare,
   and when considered carefully, really didn't provide much in the way of
   security. It would have been much easier for them to put a system in
   place that required multiple people to sign off on a document for it to
   be encrypted or decrypted. I took a lot of notes at the time on how I
   thought this sort of system could be implemented... I should dig it up
   and see what I was thinking.

   ok,
   Rush

   -----Original Message-----
   From: Eric Murray [[1]mailto:ericm@lne.com]
   Sent: Wednesday, November 01, 2000 3:21 PM
   To: Multiple recipients of list
   Subject: Re: Zero Knowledge changes business model (press release)

   On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 03:56:56PM -0500, David Honig wrote:
   >
   > At 12:13 PM 10/31/00 -0500, Tim May wrote:
   > >How about:
   > >
   > >-- no key escrow, no split keys, no trusted third parties
   >
   > I don't see any way around the fact that some companies will want to
   have
   > key escrow of some form for employees who disappear, e.g., car
   accident,
   > pickpocket stole the key-carrier, etc.  I think companies will want
   this
   > because of the risks of financial damage to the company.
   >
   > Although its hazardous if done wrong [cf recent PGP problems], is
   > tarnished by the Fedz/Denning/etc, and might have no use in a
   personal
   > privacy tool (your diary dies with you), isn't it too dogmatic to
   rule out
   > key escrow for tools intended for use by groups?
   >
   > Are there equivalent methods which don't use escrowed keys, which I
   > am unaware of?

   I beleive it was Eric Hughes who at a Cypherpunks meeting about four
   years ago, said "the solution isn't key escrow, it's document escrow".
   Which makes sense- a business doesn't (or shouldn't) allow employees
   to keep a single copy of an important document on their hard drive.
   It should be replicated in other known places in case of disaster
   (drive
   failure, stolen computer, employee hit by bus, etc).  Just because
   documents are encrypted doesn't mean that this practice is abandoned.

   One can envision a system where there's a corporate "document czar" who
   is regularly given docs from various employees and who then encrypts
   them
   in his own key.  When and where the docs get decrypted is determined by
   corporate policies.  No key escrow required.

   I don't know of any existing system like this, but formal corporate
   document control isn't my field.

   --
     Eric Murray           Consulting Security Architect
   SecureDesign LLC
     [2]http://www.securedesignllc.com                            PGP
   keyid:E03F65E5

References

   1. mailto:ericm@lne.com
   2. http://www.securedesignllc.com/