Clinton task force calls for key recovery
A cyber-terrorism commission is the latest government group to suggest "back door" access to coded messages for court-authorized law enforcement agents.
The President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection recommendations hardly break new ground. The Clinton administration already is on record supporting a Senate bill that would make life difficult for those who didn't participate in a so-called key recovery system.
Civil libertarians and critics in the high-tech industry have complained bitterly that key recovery systems make encrypted communications vulnerable to a host of threats. A study released in May by 11 cryptographers and computer scientists outlined a number of specific concerns, including bugs that would expose users' keys and abuse by law enforcement insiders.
"When you create a separate copy of your key, you're running the risk that it will fall into the wrong hands," said James Dempsey, senior staff counsel with the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, D.C. "By urging the adoption of key recovery, this report is basically re-creating a whole new set of vulnerabilities in the name of solving existing vulnerabilities."