Re: IBM sues critics?

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In <1.5.4.32.19970614201321.009a8b38@pop.pipeline.com>, on 06/14/97 
   at 04:13 PM, John Young <jya@pipeline.com> said:

>Secret Squirrel wrote:
>>According to a usually reliable contact in a position to know, IBM Friday
>>filed a liable suit against the 11 authors of the study
>>titled "The risks of key recovery, key escrow and trusted third-party
>>encryption" plus their employers and the Centere for Democracy and
>>Technology, which sponsored the report.  According to my contact, IBM
>>feels that the report directly targets their own key recovery system,
>>and falsely implies that it isn't reliable.  They are asking for
>>unspecified damages.


>If this report is true it's worth taking a look at IBM's policy paper
>"The need for a global cryptographic policy framework" to  understand why
>the key study report is such a threat to
>Blue's global market strategy:

>   http://www.ibm.com/security/html/pp_global.html

>IBM's economic incentive to attack the report is substantial, not least
>because it hopes to garner the lion's share of global GAK --
>not that that's news.


Has there been any conformation on this?

I would like to get in touch with some of my contacts at IBM but would
like to have some info on this first.

Thanks,

- -- 
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William H. Geiger III  http://www.amaranth.com/~whgiii
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At 11:17 AM -0500 6/16/97, William H. Geiger III wrote:
>
>Has there been any conformation on this?
>
>I would like to get in touch with some of my contacts at IBM but would
>like to have some info on this first.


To the best of my knowledge neither CDT nor any of the individual authors
has been served with any papers or received any other notice of a suit
regarding the key recovery report. (Available at
http://www.crypto.com/key_study)

I suspect that the last thing IBM would want to do is give this experts'
report
more publicity.  At this point, rumors of a lawsuit appear to be unfounded.

And remember: In libel cases, truth is always a defense.  :)

	-- Alan Davidson
	   Staff Counsel, CDT
	   "I work for shallow pockets"


Alan Davidson, Staff Counsel                 202.637.9800 (v)
Center for Democracy and Technology          202.637.0968 (f)
1634 Eye St. NW, Suite 1100                  <abd@cdt.org>
Washington, DC 20006                         PGP key via finger