PGP "master keys"

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

note from the corporate side ... is was specifically the escrow of 
encryption keys for data at rest ... as part of prudent corporate asset 
protection; it was not escrow of authentication keys nor escrow of 
encryption keys used for communication.

the internal network was larger than the arpanet/internet from just 
about the beginning until possibly around summer of 85. at the time of 
the great change-over to internetworking protocol on 1/1/83, the number 
of arpanet/internet nodes was approx. 250 (a number that the internal 
network had passed in the mid-70s, the internal network passed 1000 
nodes a little later in 83).
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subnetwork.html#internalnet

corporate inter-site links had to be encrypted ... which at the time met 
link encryptors .. there was claims that the internal network had over 
half of all the link encryptors in the world. there wasn't any corporate 
escrow issues with link encryptor keys. there were various problems with 
gov. agencies ... significant problems especially in europe getting 
gov/ptt authorization for corporate link encryptors (on corporate links, 
between corporate sites, purely carrying corporate data) especially when 
the links crossed country boundaries.

issues did start showing up in the mid-90s in the corporate world ... 
there were a large number of former gov. employees starting to show up 
in different corporate security-related positions (apparently after 
being turfed from the gov). their interests appeared to possibly reflect 
what they may have been doing prior to leaving the gov.


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