[47413] in Cypherpunks
Lotus to export 64 bit, partially-escrowed Notes
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Peter Trei)
Wed Jan 17 15:49:30 1996
From: "Peter Trei" <trei@process.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1996 15:45:37 -6
Reply-To: trei@process.com
Cc: trei@toad.com, gildea@toad.com
Alerted by a colleague at the RSA Data Security conference today, I just
checked the Lotus site. Folks may wish to look at
http://www.lotus.com/home/whatsnew.htm
A new 'international' version of Lotus notes is being released, with
64 bit session keys, as opposed to the old 40 bit version.
24 bits of the session key are stored encrypted under a special,
government-access RSA public key. This is in addittion to the full
64 bit key being available under the recipient's public RSA key.
The idea is that the USG would have to search only a 40-bit keyspace,
while others will need to search a 64-bit keyspace.
Reportedly, this 'workfactor reduction key' will NOT be available to
foreign governments.
My colleague reports that opinion at the conference was divided over
whether Lotus was doing something which made good business
sense, or whether this was 'caving-in'.
Speaking only for myself
Peter Trei
trei@process.com
