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patent office and key recovery

2 expanded posts ยท every known parent and child

NODE a8aed0b5patent office and key recovery
Steve Bellovin <smb@research.att.com> posted this to cryptography:
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Today's NY Times had an article on how the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office is gearing up for electronic filing of patent and trademark
applications
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/012698patents.html).  Since
patent applications here are confidential, filings must be encrypted.
And of course, one of the things holding up deployment -- of a system
where a government agency is the legitimate recipient of the message --
is the "need" for key recovery.

	"The agency wants to include a "key recovery" system in the
	software in case the encryption has to be broken."

The mind boggles.

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NODE 61042798Re: patent office and key recovery
>	"The agency wants to include a "key recovery" system in the
>	software in case the encryption has to be broken."
>
>The mind boggles.

The Patent Office is obliged to submit all patent applications to the
spooks for review (as patent attorney Axel Horns pointed out on
another list). So there is little "need" for "recovery" even from the
government point of view, other than getting people to use key escrow.