At 02:41 PM 1/25/99 -0500, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote:
>Of course destroying a key is destroying evidence.
>But, absent required records in some highly regulated industries, or a
>court order requiring record preservation, it's usually not illegal to
>destroy evidence unless it's done in furtherance of a conspiracy, or if
>you know or have reason to know that a subpoena or search warrant has been
>(or, is about to be) issued for that stuff.
In particular, you can use Diffie-Hellman and other systems
for perfect forward secrecy, which don't store session keys,
as well as having standard retention/disposal policies for information
(except for things that you need to keep, obviously...)
electronically as well as for paper.
DH with signatures has the advantage that subpoenaing your
signature key is an obviously bogus action, since it's only
good for future forgery, rather than for obtaining past information.
>In other words, you can trash your keys in the ordinary course of your
>life, and since it's your key, that's usually not a legal problem, even if
>it makes life harder for some LEO some day, unless some special
>circumstances apply. One such special circumstance is an official piece
>of paper with your name on it...
Thanks!
Bill
Bill Stewart, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639
