PGP "master keys"

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting "Steven M. Bellovin" <smb at cs.columbia.edu>:

> In an article on disk encryption
> (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/26/pgp_infosec/), the following
> paragraph appears:
>
> 	BitLocker has landed Redmond in some hot water over its insistence
> 	that there are no back doors for law enforcement. As its
> 	encryption code is open source, PGP says it can guarantee no back
> 	doors, but that cyber sleuths can use its master keys if
> 	neccessary.
>
> What is a "master key" in this context?

ADK, the Additional Decryption Key.   An enterprise with a Managed
PGP Desktop installed base can set up an ADK and all messages get
encrypted to the ADK in addition to the recipient's key.

> 		--Steven M. Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available


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