Property RIghts in Keys

[Nicolas Williams]

On Tue, Feb 03, 2009 at 04:54:48PM -0500, Steven M. Bellovin wrote:
> Under what legal theory might a certificate -- or a key! -- be
> considered "property"?  There wouldn't seem to be enough creativity in
> a certificate, let alone a key, to qualify for copyright protection.

Private and secret keys had better be property.  Public keys are...
well, *public*, and CA public keys really, really had better be public,
so I'm as perplexed as you.

Most likely this is just a case of lawyers gone wild.  Too bad a TV show
or DVD product based on that idea wouldn't be successful.

> I won't even comment on the rest of the CPS, not even such gems as
> "Subscribers warrant that ... their private key is protected and that
> no unauthorized person has ever had access to the Subscriber's private
> key."  And just how can I tell that?

Really, really wild lawyers.  (Or maybe not so wild, in the U.S.,
depending on what happens in the Lori Drew case.)

Nico
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