Abstract

A tension has been growing for the past twenty years between the interests of the public to protect its sensitive information and the interests of governments to access the information of their adversaries. The Clipper Key Escrow program, introduced by the US Government in 1993, was an attempt to overcome this tension by giving the public good cryptography while retaining for law enforcement the ability to decrypt communications when authorized. But Clipper has many problems that make it unattractive to the public.
The basic concepts of key escrow are very attractive to individuals and organizations who fear the consequences of losing their encryption keys. A key escrow system that satisfies the concerns of individuals and corporations and also meets governments interests could help resolve this growing national tension.

Date

1995

Authors

Stephen T Walker, Steven B Lipner, Carl M Ellison, Dennis K Branstad, David M Balenson