Here's a really muddled passage from the House Intelligence (sic)
Committee report ftp://ftp.loc.gov/pub/thomas/cp106/hr117p5.txt :
The Committee amendment preserves law enforcement's crime fighting
and public safety capabilities by providing clear authority through
judicial processes to access the plaintext or decryption
information, without the target of the investigation's knowledge
or cooperation. It does not, however, require key escrow, or
mandate key recovery. Key recovery is a non-factor for domestic
use and for export considerations.
Huh? There are only 2 ways to access plaintext without the user's
cooperation:
1. Key recovery/escrow schemes
2. Crippled encryption.
The elaborate judicial processes their rewritten bill sets up are
clearly designed for key recovery (e.g. from your system administrator)
though they avoid the term. Breaking weak crypto would need no such
procedures; (though they'd probably have to ask for permission if they
wanted the plaintext admitted as evidence.)
Howie Goodell
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