During the fall of 1996, I was in a meeting where the administration representative made it quite clear that the grade of security desired for commerce would cost thousands of lives if it left this country. We also were told that there will be no restriction for domestic use, but that exports will be firmly controlled. Thanks for the revelation. To this end, the administration is moving ahead with the concept of key recovery. This is an important shift from the earlier key escrow proposal.
Key escrow can frequently only recover stored data.
Thus, key recovery is an important shift in the effort to open up sessions to those with access to the key recovery system. It is important to note that none of this technology exists. We understand the concerns of law enforcement and national security, but we have our doubts that this policy will address those concerns. We cannot allow ourselves to be held hostage by law enforcement's concern that it will have to spend a fraction of the money already lost in order to beef up other surveillance methodologies. This policy can work only if there is a comprehensive multilateral agreement with all countries that produce cryptographic solutions.