Re: Info on Netscape's key escrow position

At 11:01 PM 12/1/95 -0800, you wrote:
>
>  I had lunch with Jim Clark today, and explained the furor that was
>currently going on in cypherpunks and elsewhere.  After lunch he sent
>me the e-mail that I've attached below to pass along.  I think the gist
>of it is that if governments require key escrow, we will have to do it
>in order to sell our products with encryption into those countries.
[rest removed for brevity]

Well someone has to say it...

"I am glad to see that Jim Clark is no longer hocking up GAK."

I just hope Netscape does not get seduced by the dark side of the feds and
impliment GAK "because they have to".  It is one thing to have cryptography
that is brute forcable in a few weeks, it is another to have a secret key
that some nosey government agent use to decrypt it in seconds.  If Netscape
impliments GAK I will move to something else because I will not be able to
trust that some other nasty surprise will exist in the software.  (As well
as having no real security left in the product.)

Do I beleive that Netscape will impliment GAK in the near future?  Not
really.  Not unless they go through another purge like the one back in
February(?), but I do not see that as being very likely.  (With the current
IPO, news of a employee purge would probibly drive down the stock and that
would be the last thing the top brass would want.)
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Alan Olsen wrote:
> 
> At 11:01 PM 12/1/95 -0800, you wrote:
> >
> >  I had lunch with Jim Clark today, and explained the furor that was
> >currently going on in cypherpunks and elsewhere.  After lunch he sent
> >me the e-mail that I've attached below to pass along.  I think the gist
> >of it is that if governments require key escrow, we will have to do it
> >in order to sell our products with encryption into those countries.
> [rest removed for brevity]
> 
> Well someone has to say it...
> 
> "I am glad to see that Jim Clark is no longer hocking up GAK."
> 
> I just hope Netscape does not get seduced by the dark side of the feds and
> impliment GAK "because they have to".  It is one thing to have cryptography
> that is brute forcable in a few weeks, it is another to have a secret key
> that some nosey government agent use to decrypt it in seconds.  If Netscape
> impliments GAK I will move to something else because I will not be able to
> trust that some other nasty surprise will exist in the software.  (As well
> as having no real security left in the product.)

  I don't think you will ever be in this position.  If we are forced implement
GAK by the government, everyone else will too.

> Do I beleive that Netscape will impliment GAK in the near future?  Not
> really.  Not unless they go through another purge like the one back in
> February(?), but I do not see that as being very likely.  (With the current
> IPO, news of a employee purge would probibly drive down the stock and that
> would be the last thing the top brass would want.)

  There was never a "purge" in Netscape engineering.  What you are referring
to happened right before I got here.  As I understand it, it was localized
to the customer support organization(which is why you know about it I assume),
and mostly involved contractors.

	--Jeff

-- 
Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist
Netscape Communication Corporation
jsw@netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw
Any opinions expressed above are mine.

among other words Jeff W. wrote...
>   I don't think you will ever be in this position.  If we are forced implement
> GAK by the government, everyone else will too.

This comment is somewhat offensive to me.  I disagree.  In fact, it
is a pretty whiny sounding and spineless statement.  Jeff, you are not
making _me_ feel any better about Jim's comments!

Kudos to Hal for his clear rebuttal and adherence to facts.
Kudos to Tim for "Do The Right Thing".

I will add that my belief is that GAK will not be the profitable way
to go.  I share in Duncan Frissell's optimism that we are now too far
down the road.

Tim has claimed that browsers are a "no loyalty" product.  I will take
this a step further and go on record saying that a GAK'd browser will
be an economic loser.  It may sell a couple of contracts, but it will
never gain widespread acceptance.

Look at recent history on the net.  It is the net leaders who are
making the future happen.  Netscape is (was?) the epitomy of this
new phenomenon.  If I were running a business, I would attempt to
fulfill cypherpunk-like requirements rather than trying to build
a "government approved" product.  Let's watch sameer...

Doing the "right thing" will end up being the "profitable thing".

Maybe I'm blue sky, but it is nice to base decisions on principle...