[3647] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: DCSB: Risk Management is Where the Money Is; Trust in Digital Comm
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ian BROWN)
Fri Nov 13 14:55:15 1998
To: Enzo Michelangeli <em@who.net>
cc: cryptography <cryptography@c2.net>
In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 12 Nov 1998 08:28:56 +0800." <012201be0dd3$8757eea0$86004bca@home>
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 10:56:04 +0100
From: Ian BROWN <I.Brown@cs.ucl.ac.uk>
>Alas, the latest proposals by the Department of Trade and Industry in UK are
>to extend legal protection only to digital signatures whose keys are
>escrowed with OFTEL
Much as I dislike the DTI's proposals, it is more complex than that.
"Licensed" CAs do not have to escrow signature-only private keys when they
certify the corresponding public key. But if a certified public key can be
used for encryption and not just signature verification, the corresponding
private key must be escrowed, and available to law enforcement within an hour
of a warrant being presented to the CA. Cue mass switch from RSA to DSA...
Oh, and CAs aren't allowed to be licensed for certifying signature-only keys
but unlicensed for certifying encryption-capable keys.
The DTI are trying to intimate to judges that signatures checkable with
certificates from licensed CAs should be given a stronger presumption of
validity than those from unlicensed CAs. But the draft European Commission
directive on electronic signatures explicitly prohibits member states from
doing this. Could be an interesting battle.
Ian :(
