PGP and key escrow trends -- one persons opinion

[David Farber <farber@central.cis.upenn.edu>]

Subject: PGP and key escrow trends


>gwjapan@umd5.umd.edu (Gateway Japan Project) writes:
> ]It's amazing to see that US export controls have not prevented
> ]other countries, including Japan, from having access to high-quality
> ]encryption such as PGP.
>
>I got access to an UK site :) Can America intervene communication
>betweek UK and Japan? I'm not sure.
>
>// Kenji
>
This week I heard a talk which touched upon the availability of high-
quality and easy-to-use encryption, such as PGP and RSA, particularly
in relation to its use in SHTTP (Secure and Authenticated Web Pages).


Companies have now actually applied for and received export licenses for
these technologies, but only for use with shorter length keys. The
speaker, Marty Tenenbaum of EIT, said that the resulting level of
security was still extraordinarily high for commercial purposes, since
no one would spend thousands of hours of supercomputer special hardware
design systems trying to crack your or my credit card number, but still
subject to possible cracking by government agencies in times of war,
etc., or hot on the trail of a suspected nuclear terrorist.


He also talked about the need and role for commercially escrowed key
systems, as opposed to the Clipper approach. Just the way (in the
US) if you die there is a legal way for your heirs to get permission to
get into your safe deposit vaults etc. even though you took the
password to heaven with you, companies need to have means to get into
files of employees after they are terminated, or to get to source
code if a company goes out of business etc. There is already an existing
real and important market for escrow services, but it is a commercial
one. He expected that this will arise and serve a need as well as bypass
the need for Clipper in the area of public key encryption.


P.S. A disclaimer: Marty doesn't work for the government, but does have
a lot of US government funding supporting (in part) his research.
============================================================
Dr. Harry J. Saal, President & CEO, Smart Valley, Inc.
   http://www.svi.org/    gopher://gopher.svi.org
E-mail: HSaal@svi.org Voice: 415-843-2102  FAX: 415-843-2222
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============================================================
Dr. Harry J. Saal, President & CEO, Smart Valley, Inc.
   http://www.svi.org/    gopher://gopher.svi.org
E-mail: HSaal@svi.org Voice: 415-843-2102  FAX: 415-843-2222
============================================================