[39684] in Cypherpunks
RE: GAK
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Cman@communities.com)
Wed Sep 20 21:12:12 1995
From: cman@communities.com (Cman@communities.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 21:09:03 GMT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 13:09:03 -0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
From: cman@communities.com (Douglas Barnes)
Subject: Re: GAK
One good (non-cypherpunk) argument against GAK is that it
concentrates a very large quantity of valuable keys in a few
places, where they become an extremely attractive target for
government or corporate espionage.
You could compare this to the function served by banks, but
banks tend to notice fairly quickly when money is missing.
Compromising keys doesn't involve removing anything, or throw
the books out of balance; they just get copied. The compromise
is only revealed if they are used clumsily.
Note that a few million keys would fit very easily on even a
low-end DAT tape (easily hidden in a pack of cigarettes).
