ietf-openpgp
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Re: proposal: commercial data recovery [P]

1997-10-14 15:14:19
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At 15:42 1997-10-14 -0600, Rick Smith wrote:
ObPolitics: Personally, I think it's too soon to tell if PGP's
implementation would benefit the FBI in its pursuit of wiretapping keys. At
most it might resolve whether such mechanisms are in fact a practical
technology. I'm not yet convinced.

A major reason GAK runs into such strong opposition is the gut feeling 
that it violates the expectation of privacy. If the communication in 
question is already accessible by a third party, it can be argued that 
that expectation no longer exists. In this environment a government 
might succeed in passing GAK legislation that requires organizations 
that have third-party access to encrypted communications to provide the 
plaintext to the government on issue of a subpoena or court order.

Also, if commercial sites have already co-opted PGP's recovery key for
their own uses, it's not clear that the FBI will be able to use it for
clandestine investigations. If they approach the site's IS managers to
acquire copies of the firewall keys, there's a good chance a rumor will get
back to the people being targeted for surveillance.

Assuming GAK legislation is passed, any such action on the part of an IS 
manager would be illegal.

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