[48245] in Cypherpunks
Re: Denning's misleading statements
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jim bell)
Sat Jan 27 00:42:54 1996
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 1996 21:13:01 -0800
To: Thomas Grant Edwards <tedwards@Glue.umd.edu>, cypherpunks@toad.com
From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
At 10:24 PM 1/26/96 -0500, Thomas Grant Edwards wrote:
>
>I think the big bait-and-switch is her description of the various
>companies falling over themselves to get to _VOLUNTARY_ key escrow to
>avoid losing data and protecting themselves against employee problems
>versus _MANDATORY_GOVERNMENT_ key escrow to ensure that individuals
>cannot hide information from the government.
>
>Key escrow is good. Key escrow against your will is bad.
While I understand your point, I sorta hafta disagree. (or, at least, state
my reservations.)
If something is technologically IMPOSSIBLE (or, in practice, not available),
it won't be mandated by government because it can't be. The moment
something exists, it can be forced on people.
I'm not saying we should somehow try to prevent people from developing truly
voluntary key-escrow systems; rather, I'm saying that their existence should
alert us to the danger.
