RE: PGP Employee on MKR

>> Not to mention that *ANY* crypto system can be turned into GAK if
>> the FBI & NSA get congress to pass the laws that they want.
>
>Yes, but PGP WANT TO BUILD THIS INTO EVERY SYSTEM THEY SELL!!!!! I
don't
>care that any Perl hacker can write a script which builds CMR into PGP
>2.6.2, because those scripts are restricted to those who wish to use
>them. PGP ARE BUILDING THE FUNCTIONALITY INTO EVERY PRODUCT THEY
SELL!!!!

But the changes to add GAK/GMR/CMR to PGP (or any other crypto product
that permits multiple recipients) are close to trivial.  Don't be fooled
into thinking that if PGP takes this "feature" out (can't be a bug --
it's documented :) that that will make it a lot harder to add that
feature back in once the appropriate laws are passed.

Still, in retrospect, PGP's engineers and scientists should have thought
about all the security implications of CMR -- they might have
implemented CDR to begin with.
==========================================================
Mark Leighton Fisher          Thomson Consumer Electronics
fisherm@indy.tce.com          Indianapolis, IN
"Their walls are built of cannon balls, their motto is
'Don't Tread on Me'"

Fisher Mark <FisherM@exch1.indy.tce.com> writes:
> Mark Grant <mark@unicorn.com> writes:
> >Yes, but PGP WANT TO BUILD THIS INTO EVERY SYSTEM THEY SELL!!!!! I
> >don't care that any Perl hacker can write a script which builds CMR 
> >into PGP 2.6.2, because those scripts are restricted to those who 
> >wish to use them. PGP ARE BUILDING THE FUNCTIONALITY INTO EVERY 
> >PRODUCT THEY SELL!!!!
> 
> But the changes to add GAK/GMR/CMR to PGP (or any other crypto product
> that permits multiple recipients) are close to trivial.  Don't be fooled
> into thinking that if PGP takes this "feature" out (can't be a bug --
> it's documented :) that that will make it a lot harder to add that
> feature back in once the appropriate laws are passed.

Adding the feature clearly will be easy.  But persuading the people
using the non-CMR enabled software base to downgrade will be a big
problem.  I wonder how many people will still using old versions years
later.  There is a huge inertia to not upgrade that frequently.
People don't like upgrading, companies don't like upgrading, it costs
time, money, it's unwanted hassle.  

I'm guilty of this myself in some areas.  `do fix what isn't broken'.
Eg I'm using an ancient beta Xfree86, and hacking around the expiry
simply because I can't be bothered to download and install the next
version.

At dcs.exeter the admins were _way_ behind.  I had netscape2, and then
3 installed for myself and friends to use, while they were still
trundling along with an antique NCSA Mosaic beta version or something.
I had gcc-273 installed in my own filespace and they had gcc-258 or
something (it matters if you're using templates.. the old ones are
more broken).

> Still, in retrospect, PGP's engineers and scientists should have
> thought about all the security implications of CMR -- they might
> have implemented CDR to begin with.

You would've thought, yes.  Even from a security point of view,
forgetting political arguments CDR is better.

Adam
-- 
Now officially an EAR violation...
Have *you* exported RSA today? --> http://www.dcs.ex.ac.uk/~aba/rsa/

print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<>
)]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0<X+d*lMLa^*lN%0]dsXx++lMlN/dsM0<J]dsJxp"|dc`