🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov7.142220.1683@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>
denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:

>My question is: is this any better?  worse?

In a word, worse.  Much worse.  It requires more invasive monitoring
that any previously proposal, it restricts the use of encryption, and
it creates new bureaucracies.

Re: "3-way Diffie-Hellman public-key exchange protocol"
>The third party would be the service provider ...

This new proposal is now a variant of the digital telephony bill.
Note that the session key is useless unless the digital contents of
the session are also sent.  So now we have required participation in
both line monitoring _and_ key generation.

I would suggest that curious parties get a hold of the list of
corporate opponents of the digital telephony bill.  This list can be
obtained from the EFF.  It includes AT&T and most, if not all, of the
RBOC's.

>Obviously this would not work with PGP or any form of RSA encryption
>which uses permanent keys.  So if such a strategy were used, it would
>constrain what protocols & methods could be used.

Such a new law would also then make certain uses of cryptography
illegal.  All of these uses would pertain to cryptography as used in
communications.  The best use of cryptography is exactly for
communications.  

Let me understate the case to say that this is undesirable.

>... it might be better to just record session keys rather than
>permanent keys.

To summarize, we are going to record session keys and restrict
permanent keys.  Convenient, to say the least.

Re: computer networks
>much harder ... than telephone systems where you could
>require that hardware products meet the basic requirements.

Such a new law would also require a new bureaucracy to ensure that
switches met type specification.

Another market opportunity: Interop for monitoring equipment!

>... no keys would be kept unless a court order were issued.

Thus session key archiving would be another unenforceable crime.

Earlier in her article, Dorothy Denning writes:
>I'd like to suggest another possibility, which for want of a better
>name I'll call the "copper balloon".  It's quite clear that key
>registration goes over like a "lead balloon".

Let's see, copper has a lower density than lead, right?  In that case
this proposal should be named the "uranium balloon."

Allow me now to address Dorothy Denning personally.  It is the opinion
of many here that any kind of prior arrangement for the monitoring of
encrypted communications is inconsistent with the principles of a free
society.  I urge you simply to change your mind on this matter.  To
hold a bad opinion _per se_ is nothing to be ashamed of, and to change
one's opinion away from such an opinion is honorable.  No one will
think less of you for embracing freedom.

Eric