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FW: New Encryption Export Bill Aims To Ease Controls
On the current topic.......
> New Encryption Export Bill Aims To Ease Controls
> ( 5/13/98; 10:00 AM EST)
> By Charlotte Dunlap, Computer Reseller News
> <http://www.pointcast.com/cgi-bin/cmpnet.cgi?location=www.crn.com>
> Another bill has surfaced by senators trying to ease encryption export
> controls.
> The E Privacy Act sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen.
> John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) would allow unlimited strengths of encryption
> technology to be exported to countries that already offer that same
> level of encryption.
> Current U.S. legislation dictates that encryption export be limited to
> 40-bit key lengths, and in some cases, 56-bit. Some vendors have slid
> around that law by working out case-by-case arrangements with the
> government, particularly where the higher-level encryption is used in
> data-sensitive industries, such as financial. But for the most part,
> it has been an uphill battle by industry vendors, such as RSA Data
> Security and Certicom, which are beginning to lose business to foreign
> competitors that can offer higher-level encryption to global
> customers.
> The task of integrating secured solutions, including encryption, has
> not been easy for value-added resellers, either.
> David Robinson, president of Digital Systems Management, in Lakeland,
> Fla., told CRN Online he has had to use the technology of foreign
> encryption vendors when his clients' foreign offices need encryption.
> Other resellers have told of similar experiences.
> The bill, announced Tuesday, along with Americans for Computer Privacy
> aims to ban the requirement of "backdoors," or the use of key escrow.
> Key escrow is a concept proposed by the government and refers to
> including a back up key with the software, so instead of limiting the
> strength of cryptography, its gives U.S. law enforcement agents a key
> to access the software if they deem necessary.
> But encryption vendors have objected to this method all along, saying
> their foreign customers would never agree to such an arrangement.
> "This doesn't make much sense at all for export," said Phil Deck, CEO
> of Certicom, in Mississauga, Ontario, of key escrow.
> "The objectives of this bill sound really great, protecting the
> Constitution and all that," he added. "Encryption technology is
> available in a lot of countries, and it's been a problem for North
> American companies when they're competing with domestic technology and
> they can't export [it] themselves."
> He added that the passing of this bill would "spur a fair amount of
> revenue growth for U.S. companies."
>