PGP "master keys"

Steven M. Bellovin smb at cs.columbia.edu
Wed Apr 26 22:41:12 EDT 2006


On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 22:24:22 -0400, Derek Atkins <warlord at MIT.EDU> wrote:

> 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.
> 
Ah -- corporate key escrow.  An overt back door for Little Brother, rather
than a covert one for Big Brother....

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

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com



More information about the cryptography mailing list