A breakthrough in the deadlock between the US software industry and the government over encryption policy seems about as hard to crack as the encryption the companies are seeking permission to use. After two days of talks between chief executives of industry leaders and the attorney general Janet Reno and FBI director Louis Freeh, no concessions were made by either side and no advance on previous positions looks like emerging any time soon. The industry wants the current export ban on strong encryption lifted, while law enforcement officials, in particular Freeh, want the ban maintained, and in certain cases extended to cover domestic use as well. At present products cannot be exported without a special license if they use encryption keys that are greater than 56-bits in length and then they can usually only be exported if law enforcement officials have guaranteed access to the data using keys. Special permission has been granted in the past for export to US-owned subsidiaries and renowned financial services companies without key recovery, but only in a handful of cases. The CEOs of Microsoft Corp, Novell Inc, IBM Corp’s Lotus, Sun Microsystems Inc and MCI Communications Corp were all involved in the discussions, which were held at the office of Californian Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. There wasn’t an agreement to change any position, said Microsoft chairman and CEO Bill Gates. Feinstein was slightly more upbeat, telling Reuters the seeds for possible approaches to ways of resolving the dispute had been laid. Feinstein has traditionally been affiliated with Freeh’s side of the argument.
