This is from Need to Know (13/02/98)

Maybe if they knew more about encrypting their e-mails, there wouldn't be so many leaks about this. Yes, it sounds like the British government really are going to choose the path of maximum stupidity and announce a KEY ESCROW POLICY in the next couple of weeks. Without getting too technical (as if we would), this is ... a bad thing. Bad for civil liberties, bad for business. It will be as if you'll be forced to loan someone else your PIN, or your signature. Britain's booming crypto industries - particularly the ones being eyed up by Bill Gates in Cambridge - will be zapped at birth. At worst - if key escrow is made mandatory - you'll be criminalised simply for owning a copy of Pretty Good Privacy, while the real outlaws will simply move onto undetectable crypto systems. Almost all the security experts are against it - all, except the ones at GCHQ, who rather like the idea of being able to break into anyone's private communications at the drop of a hat. "Attempts to control the use of encryption technology are wrong in principle, unworkable in practice, and damaging to the long-term economic value of the information networks.", said the Labour Party's manifesto, signed and pledged by Tony Blair himself. Or perhaps he gave away his signature for someone else to use? Gosh, wouldn't *that* be a terrible thing to happen?

http://www.labour.org.uk/views/info%2Dhighway/content.html
- on message? But which message exactly?

http://www.pgpi.com/
- get it before it's hot

http://www.crypto.com/key_study/report.shtml
- the big guns come out against key escrow

http://www.ntk.net/gordon/
- Gordon Brown's signature. If we trust them with ours they should trust you with theirs. Right?

I'll be posting updates on this site as well, so watch this space - Harl