Re: Encrypted Data Across National Boundries

["Marcus J. Ranum" <mjr @ iwi . com>]

Daniel Dill writes:
>'third "neutral" party' key escrow sounds to me like a software version 
>of Clipper.

	That's exactly what it is.

	The same agencies that sponsored Clipper are pushing for
"software key escrow" for the same reason. The carrot they are
dangling is that some high quality crypto (DES, forget 3DES or IDEA)
may be OK'd for export if it uses "key escrow." (A better term for
it is "government access to keys")

	Industry has been pretty uniformly negative towards the
idea, but I expect we'll see the same pattern of "incentivization"
as we saw with Clipper. It's a dirty business all around. And of
course we taxpayers are paying big $$ for it.

	It is unamerican. It is wrong. Just say "no."

	If it happens, we will call for a boycott of products
containing it, and companies providing and abetting it.

mjr.