🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct26.180813.7002@netcom.com> tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May) writes:

>Is there a trial balloon being floated to effectively ban encryption?
>
>Noted and influential influential crypto advisor Dorothy Denning has
>apparently floated the idea of _public key registration_ in a paper or
>talk at the 15th Computer Security Conference in Baltimore, held
>recently. 

>Here's my understanding of her proposal:
>
>* Anyone using public key cryptography would be required to register
>the private key with the appropriate authorities, for example, the
>Justice Department.
>
>* To head off the obvious concerns about the government routinely
>reading e-mail, financial dealings, etc., this registered key would be
>stored at an independent agency after first being encrypted with the
>_public key_ of Justice. (That is, the independent key storage agency
>would have an unusable key, so _they_ couldn't use it themselves.)
>
>* To obtain a usable form of the private key, Justice would have to
>get a valid court order, go to the independent storage agency, present
>the order, pick up the key, open it with their own _private key_, and
>proceed to open mail, read communications, etc.
>

What good would this do?  If I'm a criminal and I'm intelligent enough
to encrypt my data, I'm intelligent enough to use an unregistered key.
If the court order comes down I'm charged with using an unregistered key
instead of whatever I would have been charged with.  This is just another
case of restricting the law abiding citizen while having no affect on
criminals.

>
>I think it was John Gilmore who said: "If encryption is outlawed, only
>outlaws will have encryption."
>
>
>-- 
>..........................................................................
>Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
>tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
>408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
>W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
>Higher Power: 2^756839 | PGP 2.0 and MailSafe keys by arrangement.
>

Roger
books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu