[2083] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: patent office and key recovery
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Adam Shostack)
Mon Jan 26 10:09:24 1998
From: Adam Shostack <adam@homeport.org>
In-Reply-To: <199801261338.IAA26150@raptor.research.att.com> from Steve Bellovin at "Jan 26, 98 08:38:18 am"
To: smb@research.att.com (Steve Bellovin)
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 1998 09:51:12 -0500 (EST)
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
Its a perfectly valid requirement that the PO be able to read the
document. If they lose their keys, which are presumably going to be
widely distributed and authenticated, they need to have a backup key.
If they can't decrypt a message, they need to be able to get a new
copy delivered quickly and reliably. Anderson (96), and Chen
and Hughes (97) show that authentication needs to be inside the
encrypted message, so it doesn't make sense to put an autheitcation
stamp on the outside.
The Clipper requirement is so the NSA and Mossad can read patent
applications before they're filed, and slap secrecy orders on them
before the Patent office decrypts them.
Adam
Steve Bellovin wrote:
| Today's NY Times had an article on how the U.S. Patent and Trademark
| Office is gearing up for electronic filing of patent and trademark
| applications
| (http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/012698patents.html). Since
| patent applications here are confidential, filings must be encrypted.
| And of course, one of the things holding up deployment -- of a system
| where a government agency is the legitimate recipient of the message --
| is the "need" for key recovery.
|
| "The agency wants to include a "key recovery" system in the
| software in case the encryption has to be broken."
|
| The mind boggles.
--
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
-Hume
