[727] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Full Strength Stronghold 2.0 Released Worldwide
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Lucky Green)
Wed May 7 16:24:40 1997
Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 13:15:41 -0700 (PDT)
From: Lucky Green <shamrock@netcom.com>
To: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
cc: cryptography@c2.net
In-Reply-To: <19970506232410.16753@bywater.songbird.com>
On Tue, 6 May 1997, Kent Crispin wrote:
> It is my opinion that the demand is not driven by a false perception
> of a technical need, as you suggest. Rather, the demand is driven by
> two other things: the nature of management control in business, and
> the psychology of key management by people who don't have a personal
> stake in remembering their keys. Neither of these are technical
> factors. You won't have much luck convincing business people that
> they don't understand the psychology of their employees, either.
One more time: the demand for *access to plaintext* is driven by a mixture
of the issues you suggest and, perhaps in some cases, legitimate business
needs. The technical solution almost universally proposed to fill this
need, key recovery, is being driven by the false perception that KR is the
best solution to achieve the goal of corporate access to plaintext.
KR is not the best method to achieve this goal. It is only the best
method if the goal is to implement GAK.
The notion that KR is the best, if not only, way to allow corporate access
to plaintext is a false perception that the pro-GAK forces successfully
managed to install into the minds of corporate America and even many
list members.
--Lucky
