McCain Open to Key Recovery Alternative (Wired coverage)

   McCain Open to Key Recovery Alternative
   
   by Rebecca Vesely 
   3:06pm  11.Jul.97.PDT Senator John McCain, sponsor of legislation that
   would create a domestic key recovery system for all encrypted
   commercial transactions and personal communications, said Friday that
   he is open to hearing alternatives to such a plan.
   
   "We are not wedded entirely to key recovery," the Arizona Republican
   said in an interview.
   
   McCain, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
   Committee, and Senator Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska) introduced the Secure
   Public Networks Act last month. Privacy advocates and much of the
   high-tech industry oppose domestic key recovery on grounds that it
   would violate civil rights and be impractical and expensive to build
   and manage.
   
   McCain said he met with Microsoft representatives recently to discuss
   a new technology being developed by the software giant that could be
   less intrusive and problematic than key recovery. The senator also
   said he plans to meet with Netscape officials next week to discuss yet
   another alternative.
   
   Officials from Microsoft and Netscape were not immediately available
   for comment.
   
   "I'm saying, OK, if you have another solution, I'd like to hear it,"
   McCain said, though he stressed that protecting national security
   remains his "first obligation."
   
   The McCain-Kerrey bill includes provisions for setting up a voluntary
   domestic key recovery system, including incentives for those who
   participate. Critics say participation in the key-management
   infrastructure wouldn't really be voluntary - it would be a
   prerequisite to conducting electronic commerce. Encryption, or
   data-scrambling technology, is widely viewed as the cornerstone to
   e-commerce because it conceals credit card numbers and other personal
   information traveling over networks. Key recovery, as outlined in the
   bill, would create a system of certificate authorities to whom users
   would give a copy of their data keys. Law enforcement could then
   access that copy of your key through a court order.
   
   McCain's flexibility on the issue could influence the debate over how
   to protect national security while allowing a free market to flourish
   in the digital age.
   
   Just two days ago, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the
   bill, FBI director Louis Freeh testified on the need for mandatory
   domestic key recovery, and some senators on the committee, notably the
   chairman, Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), seemed to agree that some sort of
   domestic key recovery is needed to allow law enforcement to wiretap
   suspect digital communications and transactions.
   
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