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Information Security

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    Wow! Although I understood the possible advantages of having a two key solution I had never pinpointed it specifically to key escrow. Thanks for putting everything in perspective. Commented Nov 2, 2011 at 8:02
  • For completeness to add that in many commercial solutions (e.g. PGP Netshare, Microsoft EFS) encrypted material is safeguarded against key loss etc. not by duplicating the key but by creating a second administrator key with access to the data. Commented Nov 2, 2011 at 8:07
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    But if people can gain access to your escrowed private keys, they can decrypt your data! Why does your argument for the signatures not apply to encryption? Commented Mar 16, 2015 at 4:55
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    @RenéG: From the perspective of an organization, members (usually employees) should not be able to essentially destroy data by deleting their private key, dying, etc.—hence, private encryption keys should be escrowed. On the other hand, for legal reasons members should not be able to sign as other members, and the organization should take measures to preclude this scenario—hence, private signature keys should NOT be escrowed. Commented Jun 1, 2016 at 21:03
  • In the context of PGP, how is this handled in practice? I thought the master key always had encryption capabilities, AND the master key is needed for other important things, such as issuing subkeys and revocation, which suggests that it MUST be escrowed, contradicting your point. Is this correct, or have I misunderstood something? Commented Feb 15, 2017 at 2:18