Unnamed: 0
int64 0
11.3k
| label
stringclasses 20
values | content
stringlengths 6
66.5k
|
|---|---|---|
6,500 |
sci.crypt
|
re how do they know what keys to ask for re clipper in article johnson trwacs johnson trwacs fp trw com steve johnson writes brad clarinet com brad templeton writes and of course you have to identify yourself to the phone company and since the phone company complies with court orders they will know the magic number of your chip when they sign out a warrant on you and then can present the warrant to the key escrow house lets hope years ago a telecom tech refused to tap a line unless he saw the warrant the managment type who told him to do it fired him the appeal against the dismissal was lost who makes them forget and destroy all copies of the key once they ve decided you re not a criminal today just curious good luck paul
|
6,501 |
sci.crypt
|
re what is going on in article apr cc curtin edu au zrepachol cc curtin edu au paul repacholi writes if you can t be bothered reading get the video manufacturing consent in reply to mail queries i don t know if a video is available yet i asked about a month ao and was told rsn several have also asked which of chomskys books my answer is all of them and anything else you can get as well how ever due to irritations like the hr day etc i would say manafacturing conscent first them th last parts of detering democracy ie the bits about the domestic rd world chilling anyone at mit have a good st noam bibliography paul
|
6,502 |
sci.crypt
|
re white house public encryption management fact sheet i have a question about digital communications encryption the fact sheet mentioned encryption decryption microcircuitry with special keys for law enforcement for wire tapping purposes if i wanted to couldn t i develop encryption of my own that is if me and a partner in crime had unique encryption decryption devices installed before the tappable one couldn t we circumvent the keys system or replace it i d be really interested in knowing how the e d microcircuits might be made to prevent such befuddlement laymans language please maybe a bit technical please e mail to me as i m not in net news as much as i d like to be pete deuelpm craft camp clarkson edu deuelpm craft camp clarkson edu regret is a rough sheet to sleep on herman brooks
|
6,503 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow in article strnlghtc lgfi jqa netcom com strnlght netcom com david sternlight writes though some may argue about the nose of the camel it s worth noting that the government proposal is limited to scrambled telephony if it is only used for that purpose and does not extend to electronic mail or file encryption then it is an improvement over the current mass produced standard civilian technology which with a few exceptions is limited to easy to break inverters try reading between the lines david there are strong hints in there that they re angling for nren next and the only conceivable meaning of applying this particular technology to a computer network is that they intend it to be used in exclusion to any other means of encryption don t be lulled by the wedge because its end looks so thin graham
|
6,504 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in apr clarinet com brad clarinet com sez do the police normally reveal every tap they do even if no charges are laid in many ways it would be a positive step if they had to judges set time limits on warrants i assume under the relevant federal law usc sec d the authorizing judge must notify the targets within days after the tap period with extensions expires this is the normal practice of course no wiretap law would be complete without the unless clause which in subsection d reads like this on an ex parte showing i e by the gov t without opposition since that would obviously involve notice to the targets of good cause to a judge of competent jurisdiction the serving of the inventory required by this subsection the order itself dates of interception etc may be postponed emphasis added followups directed to a few select groups moral always choose the right sort of parents before you start in to be rough george ade mark eckenwiler eck panix com cmcl panix eck
|
6,505 |
sci.crypt
|
re how do they know what keys to ask for re clipper in article apr clarinet com brad clarinet com brad templeton writes the actual algorithm is classified however their main thrust here is for cellular phones and encryption is only over the radio end not end to end i think end to end will come later encrypting just the radio link doesn t make sense to me that means the telco has to do the decryption and hence they need the keys how are they going to be kept secure
|
6,506 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article tcmayc m xv jex netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes but is it any worse than the current unsecure system it becomes much worse of course if the government then uses this clinton clipper to argue for restrictions on unapproved encryption this is the main concern of most of us i think the camel s nose in the tent etc not to pick on mr may in particular of course but isn t this kind of the domino theory when one little country falls its neighbor will surely follow and before you know it we re all mining salt in siberia for not turning in our captain crunch secret decoder rings surely the hypothesis relying on the least wild assumptions is to take this at face value our lads at the fort were asked to cook up something that s pretty secure with a key that can be escrowed neatly and they did the government plans to sell this thing for the reasons they state yes those evil guys in the fbi can probably with some effort abuse the system i got news for you if the evil guys in the fbi decide they want to persecute you they re gonna and you re gonna hate it fact is the fbi doesn t want to listen to your phone calls and if they do and if you re using triple des they ll just get a parabolic microphone and point it at your head this is pretty clearly an effort by the government to do exactly what they re saying they re doing as is typical with governments it s mismanaged and full of holes and compromises as is typical with our government it s not too bad could be worse my interpretation andrew tim may whose sig block may get him busted in the new regime isn t this just a little melodramatic
|
6,507 |
sci.crypt
|
powerful similarity too a unix tool of cryptographic significance is available for anonymous ftp agrep a fast approximate pattern matching tool source code project available from cs arizona edu in directory agrep agrep is a very fast fuzzy search tool with a tremendous number of powerful search options the one most obviously applicable to cryptography key selection is to be able to specify the similarity of matches in the data for example say you make up a password phrase of qimwe l of course you rightly suspect that this key itself is not in any dictionary or word list but how close is it to en entry that could be varied by some crack program to brute force search for it you use agrep to find out looking with argument for none one or two errors no matches good so far but agrep qimwe l bigwordandphraselist finds that the pattern qimwe l is too close to the pattern imsel part of himself and a host of others to be of any cryptographic value as a key an error of level two corresponds to a simple transposition of letters like teh for the a minimally acceptable password would have to pass as least level in order not immediately ruled out as even a remote possibility of being a good password in real cryptographic use my personal passphrases clear at least level on my rather large meg word and phrase lists and for searching for key words in human typed data lots o typos the tool is unexcelled for example for example say i want to find out what people think about gibson s sf book neuromancer in the huge sf lover s archives even with an error distance specification as small as of i will find all those people who think the title was necromancer or other common typos why miss anything also the program can look for up to patterns in parallel at boyer moore sublinear speeds great for a nsa wannabe to look for your name terrorists names special tagalog or religious words etc in the news or e mail spool directories you can even search for ciphertext by using say random three byte combinations and eliminate all texts that don t score the x chi square birthday hits on message size y you think some crypto terrorist is try to foil you by changing the pattern on you no problem try agrep p nsa to find nsa national security agency nsecag no such agency national scrabble association n s a etc you can also specify fixed areas looking for license plate xyz when you know that the letters are correct you might say agrep xyz licenseplatedatabase will find all plates starting with xyz with up to two errors addition substitution deletion in the number area you can also weight the relative cost for substiutions additions or deletion errors for example when searching dna patterns for a particular protein combination you might know that some kinds of damage cause the a nucelotide to drop out more than other errors you could adjust for this bias by setting dc where you set the deletion cost to count as c errors a steganographic use i even used agrep steg eograp e just now to find the correct spelling would be to intentionally introduce errors of a certain type and magnitude into a plaintext and then later recover the orginal it via an agrep pipe lots of possibilities here when only outlaws can have ciphertext also with agrep s powerful extraction options it makes it easy to abstract the hits into a useful form for example agrep d from pgp passphrase zimmerman nsa says output the entire mail record delimited by from that contains pgp and contains either passphrase zimmerman or nsa and agrep has been measured an order of magnitude faster than the second best similarity tool publicly available as usual i will be glad to e mail the source and docs to those who reqest them by e mail if they cannot do an anonymous ftp get this now it is too powerful to stay in the hands of the nsa grady ward vendor to the nsa and proud of it grady netcom com ef e ad d d c f fc ac f d f e f
|
6,508 |
sci.crypt
|
pgp vs i ve seen pgp mentioned for the mac platform i use on ms dos is there a for ms dos if so a site or two that has it available i d need executables although source would be nice to review what was fixed or changed from thanks mwe mearle netcom com finger for pgp public key
|
6,509 |
sci.crypt
|
re what is going on zrepachol cc curtin edu au paul repacholi writes in article apr cc curtin edu au zrepachol cc curtin edu au paul repacholi writes if you can t be bothered reading get the video manufacturing consent in reply to mail queries i don t know if a video is available yet i asked about a month ao and was told rsn yes it is from the national film board of canada guy gthomas native ed bc ca
|
6,510 |
sci.crypt
|
clipper some new thoughts i d desparately prefer it if we didn t rehash the same arguments that went on ad infinitum last time that s especially true for sci crypt for that matter i ve created alt privacy clipper since the traffic is appearing in many different groups right now i m going to focus here on some technical aspects of the plan hence my followup to sci crypt frankly if you re not an absolutist your feelings may turn on some of these issues for example with an bit key simply splitting it into two bit pieces is much less acceptable than other schemes because it means that if just one repository is shall we say overly pliable a would be eavesdropper would need to recover just more bits of key i need not point out in this newsgroup that that s pretty easy to do by exhaustive search a slightly more complex scheme xor ing the key with a random number and then with its complement would produce two bit subkeys neither of which is useful alone that variant is much more resistant to attack clearly one can get even more sophisticated to protect the subkeys even more other thoughts some people have noted the size and complexity of the databases necessary but the id strings the phones emit could be their back door key double encrypted with the escrow repositories public keys for that matter they could do that only with session keys and have no back door at all in that case the fbi would have to bring every intercept to the repositories to be decrypted this would answer many of the objections along the lines of how do you make sure they stop we can even combine that with a variant of the digital telephony back door have the switch do the tap but with a digitally signed record of the time phone number etc of the call that provides proof to the escrow agents that the tap was done in compliance with the terms of the warrant i can suggest other variations too suppose each clipper chip had public key pairs each would be used times after which you d need more keying material not a bad idea in any event this could be used to enforce time limits or rather usage limits on each warrant the keys the repository agents would deliver wouldn t last for very long i suspect that the cryptographic algorithm itself is secure apart from the obvious why push a weak algorithm when you ve already got the back door i think that the government is still genuinely concerned about foreign espionage especially aimed at commercial targets this scheme lets the spooks have their cake and eat it too i ve heard rumors over the years that some factions within nsa were unhappy with des because it was too good not that they couldn t crack it but it was much too expensive to do so as easily as they d want they re keeping the details secret so that others don t build their own implementations without the back door the cryptographic protocol though is another matter i see no valid reasons for keeping it secret and as i hope i ve shown above there are a lot of ways to do things that aren t quite as bad
|
6,511 |
sci.crypt
|
how does it really work was re text of white house announcement and q as on clipper chip encryption this announcement is somewhat disconcerting it doesn t do anything evil in and of itself but bodes badly for the future of open algorithms and standards in information security i won t start panicking until unless des or rsa or stuff like that is prohibited but i m a little anxious no doubt it won t be long before someone posts explaining how this just a small part of some far ranging and long lived nsa pkp irs fbi cia handguncontrolinc clinton conspiracy to subvert freedom democracy and mathematics my feeling is that the administration probably isn t that worried about things like des and rsa and pgp and ripem since they ll never be used by a group much wider than us computer geeks the fact that this just came out now suggests one of two things the nsa has been working on this for a long time and it only just now happened to be ready to release to the world at this time the nsa has been working on this for a long time but wasn t able to get the bush administration to go along with this plan i find it unlikely that this would have been because of a sympathy for the unescrowed use of cryptography more likely the administration felt that even escrowed secret algorithm and for all we know trivially breakable cryptography should not be made widely available thus said clipper csrc ncsl nist gov clipper chip announcement this new technology will help companies protect proprietary information protect the privacy of personal phone conversations and prevent unauthorized release of data transmitted electronically at the same time this technology preserves the ability of federal state and local law enforcement agencies to intercept lawfully the phone conversations of criminals the majority of the discussion involving this clipper chip seems to pertain to the encryption of telephone conversations does anyone know if that means this chip is designed to work primarily with analog signals the language sort of suggests this but it s hard to say the main thing i just don t get is whether this chip implements symmetric or asymmetric cryptographic techniques anybody know i m guessing symmetric but they don t get very clear about it if it is symmetric how is it useful for anything other than link level encryption with an identical chip at each end how can you negotiate a per session key using symmetric cryptography without using a trusted third party who knows your key or does it even use a per session key if it s asymmetric what about pkp s patents which they claim cover all methods of doing asymmetric cryptography are they getting royalties or is hiding infringement the real reason for keeping the algorithm secret marc vanheyningen mvanheyn cs indiana edu mime ripem accepted kirk i won t hurt you alien you hit me kirk well i won t hit you again
|
6,512 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more i change login passwords every couple of months i sure would suck if i had to get a new sparc station everytime i wanted to do this it seems that this is what they expect you to do if you want to routinely change your password on your phone i m sure the government contractor doesn t mind but a system where you can cheaply change keys des has inherent security advantages regardless of the algorithms involved tim cuffel finger for pgp the cia has admitted that the assassination of saddam hussien was one of their goals they failed of course seems as though that motorcade through downtown dallas trick only works once
|
6,513 |
sci.crypt
|
re how to detect use of an illegal cipher in article betel camelot betel camelot bradley edu robert crawford writes jay fenton fenton kaleida com writes how can the government tell which encryption method one is using without being able to decode the traffic i e in order to accuse me of using an unauthorized strong encryption technique they would have to take both keys out of escrow run them against my ciphertext and draw a blank i was thinking about this also it s quite possible the system transmits in clear the serial number of the device being used that way they can start a tap get the serial number and use the warrant for the first tap to get the key if they tap someone who s apparently using encryption but don t find that prefix then they ll assume it s an un authorized encryption scheme from the limited details released so far it seems that the clipper chip system must employ some sort of public key cryptography otherwise the key management problems inherent to symetric ciphers would make the system unworkable it probably has some sort of public key exchange that takes place at the start of each call thats how they would identify the private key in their data base this means that either the nsa has developed some non rsa public key algorythm or the feds have decided to subsidize pkp rsadsi the former is rather an exciting posibility since keeping the algorythm secret while making chip implimentations widely avalibe will be exceptionally hard if the feds are forced to make it avalible in order to gain public acceptance than that could break rsa s stranglehold on public key crypto in the u s as for my impressions of the whole scheme it seems that instead of trying to ban strong crypto they are trying to co opt it their contention that they need to keep the algorythm secret to protect the security of the key registration suggests possible inherent weakness to the algorythm more likely is that they dont want anyone constructing black market devices which dont have the keys registered anyone else notice that in their q a session they talk about releasing the keys only to people with proper autiorization but carefully dance around stating that the keys will simply have to be supeonaed they seem to be trying to keep open the posibility of obtaining keys without court order even though tapping a phone line requires one also pick up on their implicit threat of eithe accept this or we ll ban strong crypto outright i dont trust this plan at all and plan to oppose it in all legal ways possible bill smythe
|
6,514 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes but is it any worse than the current unsecure system it becomes much worse of course if the government then uses this clinton clipper to argue for restrictions on unapproved encryption this is the main concern of most of us i think the camel s nose in the tent etc i agree this is the danger i see not the system itself that is to say this is a political issue not a technical one amanda walker intercon systems corporation
|
6,515 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow gtoal news ibmpcug co uk graham toal writes try reading between the lines david there are strong hints in there that they re angling for nren next where i honestly didn t see any and the only conceivable meaning of applying this particular technology to a computer network is that they intend it to be used in exclusion to any other means of encryption i disagree if for no other reason than that there are already other standards in place besides even if they restrict encryption on the nren who cares most of the internet is commercial anyway the nren is only for geovernment and university research read the proposals it s a data superhighway for cray users not anything having to do with the internet amanda walker intercon systems corporation
|
6,516 |
sci.crypt
|
new clipper chip proposal from the guv i saw this article posted in a local newsgroup i haven t seen it or any followup traffic relating to it in these groups or other groups which i subscribe to so i am posting it here so others can read it check it out and comment on it and provide ideas for handling these sorts of things i have no verification to the accuracy or lack of accuracy of this article but if accurate i find it extremely disturbing especially in light of various abuses of the ssn number regarding privacy i understand it is now to be required in ca to renew a drivers license or to register a car and other proposals regarding smart national identity cards wiretap proposals and such one simply wonders what other gems are in the wings ready to be sprung on the people by our government perhaps suggestions and ideas for preventing this and other such proposals from acquiring the force of law would be useful the cost simply outweighs any possible benefits imo btw reading this makes me think of some ideas a prof denning has been promoting in an even more disturbing form that said with no further comment the article follows begin included article note this file will also be available via anonymous file transfer from csrc ncsl nist gov in directory pub nistnews and via the nist computer security bbs at the white house office of the press secretary for immediate release april statement by the press secretary the president today announced a new initiative that will bring the federal government together with industry in a voluntary program to improve the security and privacy of telephone communications while meeting the legitimate needs of law enforcement the initiative will involve the creation of new products to accelerate the development and use of advanced and secure telecommunications networks and wireless communications links for too long there has been little or no dialogue between our private sector and the law enforcement community to resolve the tension between economic vitality and the real challenges of protecting americans rather than use technology to accommodate the sometimes competing interests of economic growth privacy and law enforcement previous policies have pitted government against industry and the rights of privacy against law enforcement sophisticated encryption technology has been used for years to protect electronic funds transfer it is now being used to protect electronic mail and computer files while encryption technology can help americans protect business secrets and the unauthorized release of personal information it also can be used by terrorists drug dealers and other criminals a state of the art microcircuit called the clipper chip has been developed by government engineers the chip represents a new approach to encryption technology it can be used in new relatively inexpensive encryption devices that can be attached to an ordinary telephone it scrambles telephone communications using an encryption algorithm that is more powerful than many in commercial use today this new technology will help companies protect proprietary information protect the privacy of personal phone conversations and prevent unauthorized release of data transmitted electronically at the same time this technology preserves the ability of federal state and local law enforcement agencies to intercept lawfully the phone conversations of criminals a key escrow system will be established to ensure that the clipper chip is used to protect the privacy of law abiding americans each device containing the chip will have two unique keys numbers that will be needed by authorized government agencies to decode messages encoded by the device when the device is manufactured the two keys will be deposited separately in two key escrow data bases that will be established by the attorney general access to these keys will be limited to government officials with legal authorization to conduct a wiretap the clipper chip technology provides law enforcement with no new authorities to access the content of the private conversations of americans to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new technology the attorney general will soon purchase several thousand of the new devices in addition respected experts from outside the government will be offered access to the confidential details of the algorithm to assess its capabilities and publicly report their findings the chip is an important step in addressing the problem of encryption s dual edge sword encryption helps to protect the privacy of individuals and industry but it also can shield criminals and terrorists we need the clipper chip and other approaches that can both provide law abiding citizens with access to the encryption they need and prevent criminals from using it to hide their illegal activities in order to assess technology trends and explore new approaches like the key escrow system the president has directed government agencies to develop a comprehensive policy on encryption that accommodates the privacy of our citizens including the need to employ voice or data encryption for business purposes the ability of authorized officials to access telephone calls and data under proper court or other legal order when necessary to protect our citizens the effective and timely use of the most modern technology to build the national information infrastructure needed to promote economic growth and the competitiveness of american industry in the global marketplace and the need of u s companies to manufacture and export high technology products the president has directed early and frequent consultations with affected industries the congress and groups that advocate the privacy rights of individuals as policy options are developed the administration is committed to working with the private sector to spur the development of a national information infrastructure which will use new telecommunications and computer technologies to give americans unprecedented access to information this infrastructure of high speed networks information superhighways will transmit video images hdtv programming and huge data files as easily as today s telephone system transmits voice since encryption technology will play an increasingly important role in that infrastructure the federal government must act quickly to develop consistent comprehensive policies regarding its use the administration is committed to policies that protect all americans right to privacy while also protecting them from those who break the law further information is provided in an accompanying fact sheet the provisions of the president s directive to acquire the new encryption technology are also available for additional details call mat heyman national institute of standards and technology questions and answers about the clinton administration s telecommunications initiative q does this approach expand the authority of government agencies to listen in on phone conversations a no clipper chip technology provides law enforcement with no new authorities to access the content of the private conversations of americans q suppose a law enforcement agency is conducting a wiretap on a drug smuggling ring and intercepts a conversation encrypted using the device what would they have to do to decipher the message a they would have to obtain legal authorization normally a court order to do the wiretap in the first place they would then present documentation of this authorization to the two entities responsible for safeguarding the keys and obtain the keys for the device being used by the drug smugglers the key is split into two parts which are stored separately in order to ensure the security of the key escrow system q who will run the key escrow data banks a the two key escrow data banks will be run by two independent entities at this point the department of justice and the administration have yet to determine which agencies will oversee the key escrow data banks q how strong is the security in the device how can i be sure how strong the security is a this system is more secure than many other voice encryption systems readily available today while the algorithm will remain classified to protect the security of the key escrow system we are willing to invite an independent panel of cryptography experts to evaluate the algorithm to assure all potential users that there are no unrecognized vulnerabilities q whose decision was it to propose this product a the national security council the justice department the commerce department and other key agencies were involved in this decision this approach has been endorsed by the president the vice president and appropriate cabinet officials q who was consulted the congress industry a we have on going discussions with congress and industry on encryption issues and expect those discussions to intensify as we carry out our review of encryption policy we have briefed members of congress and industry leaders on the decisions related to this initiative q will the government provide the hardware to manufacturers a the government designed and developed the key access encryption microcircuits but it is not providing the microcircuits to product manufacturers product manufacturers can acquire the microcircuits from the chip manufacturer that produces them q who provides the clipper chip a mykotronx programs it at their facility in torrance california and will sell the chip to encryption device manufacturers the programming function could be licensed to other vendors in the future q how do i buy one of these encryption devices a we expect several manufacturers to consider incorporating the clipper chip into their devices q if the administration were unable to find a technological solution like the one proposed would the administration be willing to use legal remedies to restrict access to more powerful encryption devices a this is a fundamental policy question which will be considered during the broad policy review the key escrow mechanism will provide americans with an encryption product that is more secure more convenient and less expensive than others readily available today but it is just one piece of what must be the comprehensive approach to encryption technology which the administration is developing the administration is not saying since encryption threatens the public safety and effective law enforcement we will prohibit it outright as some countries have effectively done nor is the u s saying that every american as a matter of right is entitled to an unbreakable commercial encryption product there is a false tension created in the assessment that this issue is an either or proposition rather both concerns can be and in fact are harmoniously balanced through a reasoned balanced approach such as is proposed with the clipper chip and similar encryption techniques q what does this decision indicate about how the clinton administration s policy toward encryption will differ from that of the bush administration a it indicates that we understand the importance of encryption technology in telecommunications and computing and are committed to working with industry and public interest groups to find innovative ways to protect americans privacy help businesses to compete and ensure that law enforcement agencies have the tools they need to fight crime and terrorism q will the devices be exportable will other devices that use the government hardware a voice encryption devices are subject to export control requirements case by case review for each export is required to ensure appropriate use of these devices the same is true for other encryption devices one of the attractions of this technology is the protection it can give to u s companies operating at home and abroad with this in mind we expect export licenses will be granted on a case by case basis for u s companies seeking to use these devices to secure their own communications abroad we plan to review the possibility of permitting wider exportability of these products end included article pat rwing uucp without prejudice ucc pat myrto seattle wa if all else fails try uunet pilchuck rwing pat wisdom only two things are infinite the universe and human stupidity and i am not sure about the former albert einstien
|
6,517 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow in article qp d e dorothy ibmpcug co uk gtoal news ibmpcug co uk graham toal writes try reading between the lines david there are strong hints in there that they re angling for nren next and the only conceivable meaning of applying this particular technology to a computer network is that they intend it to be used in exclusion to any other means of encryption umm i beg to differ with the phrase only conceivable meaning the sdns protocols for example make explicit provision for multiple encryption systems as does pem and i d love to see how they d mandate this new system for pem without disclosing it mind you i m not saying that multiple algorithms will actually be used but the relevant technologies certainly provide for them which certainly casts doubt on your choice of words
|
6,518 |
sci.crypt
|
don t fight clipper chip subvert or replace it clipper chip is a response to the fact that there is no business or professional body in a position to establish a standard and provide chipsets to implement it for analog or digial transmission systems rsa might be in position to do it if they had active cooperation of a couple of manufacturers of cellular phones or desktop phones large companies in the voice data comm business are out because they all have contracts with the gov which would be used to pressure them if we as professionals in crypto organizations eff etc were to put our collective minds and interests toward establishing a crypto standard for transmission and getting our companies to implement it we might avoid government control otherwise i think it will happen to us by default gov isn t probably strong enough or foolish enough to prevent strong crypt they are strong enough and we may be foolish enough to push through the clipper chip is rsa independt of the gov enough to spearhead this i for one would gladly pay royalties via purchasing secure phones if not this we should provide an algorithm which can be implemented in either sw or hw and publish it then push to make it the defacto standard in the way that pgp and ripem are becoming such we are opposing charging the bunker we should be nimble and clever the gov is strong not clever lew lew glendenning rlglende netcom com perspective is worth iq points niels bohr or somebody like that
|
6,519 |
sci.crypt
|
re trinomial based prng i tried to mail peter boucher who posted the question but my e mail bounced so apologies to thsoe who are not interested trinomials are all of the form x a x b where a have you read bremner a on trinomials of type x n ax m math scand pp zbl mr k ljunggren w on the irreducibility of certain trinomials and quadrinomials math scand pp tverberg h on the irreducibility of the trinomials x n mpm x m mpm math scand pp tverberg h on cubic factors of certain trinomials math scand pp zbl james davenport jhd maths bath ac uk
|
6,520 |
sci.crypt
|
re clipper crap encryption s dual edge sword encryption helps to protect the privacy of individuals and industry but it also can shield criminals and terrorists we need the clipper chip and other necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom it is the argument of tyrants it is the creed of slaves william pitt carl kadie i do not represent any organization this is just me kadie cs uiuc edu
|
6,521 |
sci.crypt
|
re don t fight clipper chip subvert or replace it robert lewis glendenning rlglende netcom com wrote clipper chip is a response to the fact that there is no business or professional body in a position to establish a standard and provide chipsets to implement it for analog or digial transmission systems rsa might be in position to do it if they had active cooperation of a couple of manufacturers of cellular phones or desktop phones is rsa independt of the gov enough to spearhead this i for one would gladly pay royalties via purchasing secure phones hear hear i completely agree that we need to work quickly to establish alternatives to the government s clinton clipper as brad templeton and others have noted once the clipper becomes ensconced in enough phones there will be enormous pressure to make it the legal standard and it will become the market standard as well there is a lot of confusion in the proposal about whether the use of clipper is mandated about whether non escrow alternatives will be allowed etc there are also unclear issues about how hard or how illegal it will be to make workalikes which meet the standard but which generate phony or untappable keys i m sure the next several weeks will see these issues thrashed out in this and other groups meanwhile i d be interested to hear rsa data security s reaction often criticized in this group for their licensing policies the usual complaints about mailsafe costing too much at or so and the general issue of software patents we may find that allying ourselves with rsa is the best thing we can do what s a mere licensing fee when our liberty may be at stake if everyone who wanted true security paid say for a lifetime use of all of rsa s patents which expire in the period or so then rsa would make tons of money and be happy i m sure a small price to pay for those to whom sounds like too much i m sure the actual terms could be different spread out over several years whatever to me it s a small price to pay strong crypto means strong privacy escrowing keys sending copies of keys to large databases and splitting keys into two bit pieces all done with secret and non analyzable protocols and algorithms is not strong crypto whatever some of us may think about the abstract principles of patenting number theory applications this minor issue pales in comparison with the potential dangers of the clipper proposal note that i said potential we ll presumably learn more in the coming months the rsa algorithms are at least public have been analyzed and attacked for years and source code is available to better ensure no deliberate weakenesses or trapdoors i know of a number of groups putting together voice encryption systems using off the shelf hardware like soundblaster boards for the pc and celp type software the new generations of pcs using fast s and pentiums are fast enough to do real time voice encryption combined with diffie hellman key exchange this should provide an alternative to the clipper system of course we don t really know if the administration proposes to outlaw competing systems it seems to me that their goal of tapping terrorists child pornographers and hilary bashers would be thwarted if low cost alternatives to clipper proliferated not to defend child pornographers or terrorists but limiting basic freedoms to catch a few criminals is not the american way of doing things end of soapbox mode i suggest we in these groups set aside any differences we may have had with rsa and don t look at me i have both macpgp and a fully legal copy of mailsafe and instead work with them as quickly as we can rsa jim are you listening tim may p s i reserve the right to retract these opinions if it should turn out that rsa data security was involved in the clipper proposal timothy c may crypto anarchy encryption digital money tcmay netcom com anonymous networks digital pseudonyms zero knowledge reputations information markets w a s t e aptos ca black markets collapse of governments higher power public key pgp and mailsafe available
|
6,522 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow one presumes the system could work as follows a blank clips are manufactured by mykotronx and vlsi the number produced is carefully audited and they are shipped to the first escrow house it programs the chips with its half the key and prints out a paper slip with the key half and non secret chip serial number the reams of paper are filed in locked boxes in the vault a fuse is burnt in the chip so that the key is now unreadable the chip then goes to the next escrow house where the same thing is done this continues through n escrow houses perhaps could be more than the last one provides the chip to the cellular phone maker and yes this has to be a public key system or it would be almost impossible to handle it might not be rsa but that does not mean that pkp doesn t get paid until pkp has the patent on the general concept of public key encryption as well as the particular implementation known as rsa brad templeton clarinet communications corp sunnyvale ca
|
6,523 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow in article qnupd jpm news intercon com amanda intercon com amanda walker writes jhesse netcom com john hesse writes oh great wonderful news nobody can listen in except the feds hey it s better than the status quo i am far less worried about the feds tapping my phone than high school scanner surfers who get their kicks out of eavesdropping on cellular and cordless phone calls really why are so you worried about high school kids getting their kicks with scanners as compared to what the feds can do and have done to their targets better than the status quo isn t good enough i d say the same technology could be implemented without a back door open to the state we all know about power and corruption but we all know that abuse is something that only happens to the other guy amanda walker intercon systems corporation john hesse a man jhesse netcom com a plan moss beach calif a canal bob
|
6,524 |
sci.crypt
|
re patents was rc rc in article matt wardibm med yale edu matt wardsgi med yale edu matt healy writes and bontchev fbihh informatik uni hamburg de vesselin bontchev wrote and ahaley eoe co uk andrew haley writes about coca cola and pepsi cola and what they can teach us surely if we must use pop patent law examples to discuss rc and rc it would make more sense to consider the case of rc cola jim reeds
|
6,525 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article qpg finn dns nmsu edu amolitor nmsu edu andrew molitor writes in article tcmayc m xv jex netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes but is it any worse than the current unsecure system it becomes much worse of course if the government then uses this clinton clipper to argue for restrictions on unapproved encryption this is the main concern of most of us i think the camel s nose in the tent etc not to pick on mr may in particular of course but isn t this kind of the domino theory when one little country falls its neighbor will surely follow and before you know it we re all mining salt in siberia for not turning in our captain crunch secret decoder rings i wish i could agree with you ask yourself this why would any private sector entity wish to buy a crypto system that was known to be at least partially compromised key escrows in this instance why would any private sector entity wish to buy a crypto system that had not been properly evaluated i e algorythm not publically released the answer seems obvious to me they wouldn t there is other hardware out there not compromised des as an example triple des as a better one my suspicion is that the prices will drop dramatically on these non clipper systems if not we re in trouble given that the clinton administration is not entirely stupid although we d like to think so i cannot believe that they have failed to realize this they know their initiative will fail much as crippled des was never taken seriously the only way their moves can work is by coercion you know little about politics if you don t realize that this is just a first step in the next move it makes no sense otherwise the next move banning or severly crippling crypto not using the clipper system is easily justified why would anyone want other encryption unless they were trying to subvert the government we ve provided you with a very secure alternative so use it or go to jail be fined whatever how can you reconcile the administrations self proclaimed purpose of providing law enforcement with access to encrypted data without making the clipper system the only crypto available in the u s you simply can t and the administration knows it anyone who wanted to keep the govt out of their hair be it for drug dealing or whatever would just buy still available non clipper systems don t sell our crafty clinton types short they can t be that stupid either banning non clipper crypto is the next answer or the administrations collective i q is about that of a potato why do you think at t jumped on so fast they know it s going to be big and not because it s better right on the face of it noone will buy the stuff that doesn t have to at t must know this too think man why the hell would they jump the gun my interpretation andrew tim may whose sig block may get him busted in the new regime isn t this just a little melodramatic i really wonder to wit the letter i just sent to clinton the white house office of the press secretary c o presidential comment line fax april sir and or madam i must object most strongly to the administrations evolving position on encryption and cryptography i am shocked at the clinton regimes increasing lean towards a authoritarian approach with regard to privacy and freedom from government oversight in day to day life it is apparent to me that those who drafted the clipper chip proposal which is incidentally gaining notoriety as the big brother proposal are either incredibly ignorant or very sly indeed anyone knowledgeable in the nuances of cryptographic development and research must understand that a key step in the development of a new algorithm especially one destined for standardization is the full disclosure of the algorithm to the private and academic sectors the proper evaluation of an algorithm dep ends on careful scrutiny by these sectors and only such scrutiny can provide true public confidence in the security of the algorithm the assumption that a new algorithm will be accepted based on assurances from experts without full disclosure is plain ignorance in addition the assumption that an algorithm will be marketable over other technology such as des when it is characterized by key escrow is lunacy it seems an easy step in the logic chain that probable consumers will prefer to purchase equipment not crippled by government key escrow no matter how tamper proof the key escrows might be i cannot believe that even the least educated policy maker would have failed to realize these flaws i can only assume then that the drafters of the clipper chip proposal knew very well the difficulties of selling a crippled system to the private sector the only way this proposal makes any sense or has any chance of succeeding is in coercion even the language of the proposal makes it painfully clear that the next logical step is the outlawing of other encryption devices and hardware that do not uti lize the big brother chip unfortunately the public at large is not educated enough on the issue to realize what they are losing i expect the big brother proposal to encounter little resistance from the american people who you will have so efficiently duped once again with pretty words like harmony right to encryption and voluntary it mortifies me that the phrase that seems to be used more and more often to characterize the clinton administration is i can t believe it s happening here more startling is a question a colleague of mine posed and the realization that everyday it becomes more and more relevant when is the reichstag fire planned for most concerned signature shaen logan bernhardt i uni acs bu edu uni acs bu edu public keys by finger and or request public key archives at pgp public keys junkbox cc iastate edu df f b de b c c sovereignty is the sign of a brutal past cryptography is not a crime fight the big brother proposal
|
6,526 |
sci.crypt
|
re how to detect use of an illegal cipher in article apr clarinet com brad clarinet com brad templeton writes your honour the suspect suddenly started using another level of cryptography and we can t tap his phone calls any more he must have something to hide please sign the warrant to search his house what they would need to do though is make sure that nobody has access to decent crypto in the first place they probably can t tell clippered voice from clippered triple desed voice until they get their copy of your key any criminal who s going to use encryption will do it under cover of clipper the only way to avoid this will be to try to prohibit strong encryption i probably shouldn t say this but they could try to detect the use of an illegal cypher by transmitting in the clear some statistical properties of the plaintext an old fashioned wiretap could then detect the use of pre encryption which would drastically increase the measured entropy of the input a countermeasure to this would be to use steganographic techniques which put out voice you can tell if the nsa built this feature in blow on the mike and observe whether a band of thugs comes through your ceiling pgp key by finger or e mail eli ebrandt jarthur claremont edu
|
6,527 |
sci.crypt
|
re how does it really work was re text of white house announcement and q as on clipper chip encryption marc vanheyningen mvanheyn cs indiana edu writes the main thing i just don t get is whether this chip implements symmetric or asymmetric cryptographic techniques anybody know i don t know but i m as willing to speculate as anyone several people have suggested that the chips use public key cryptography another possibility is to use diffie hellman key exchange or some other algorithm which has a similar effect dh allows both ends to agree on a session key which they use with symmetric cryptography something like des for the encryption how could the back door keys work in this system i can see a few possibilities one is that the dh like algorithm has the property that the session key can be deduced by an eavesdropper who knows the back door keys for one or possibly both communicants perhaps the random numbers used in the dh are seeded by the back door key or some such another possibility as was suggested here earlier is that the chips simply broadcast the session key encrypted with the chip s own internal secret key in this system the back door keys are secret keys usable for decrypting this session key broadcast actually the chip s secret key doesn t need to be a public key in this usage but can be identical to the secret back door key this proposal seems most straightforward to me still another possibility is that the encryption algorithm used for the message itself has a dual key property that possession of either of two keys can be used to decrypt it one key would be the session key from the dh exchange and the other would be the back door key for the chip it s worth noting that one of the proposals dorothy denning raised during her amazingly prescient on line discussion last november and december was a variation on diffie hellman in which a third party would participate in deriving the session keys this doesn t quite fit into what we know of how clipper works but it hints that those who had early knowledge of clipper or whose thinking was somehow synchronized with clipper designers may have had diffie hellman on their minds hal finney
|
6,528 |
sci.crypt
|
re the battle is joined in article apr qualcomm com karn servo qualcomm com phil karn writes it looks like dorothy denning s wrong headed ideas have gotten to the administration even sooner than we feared i d lay long odds that it was the other way around clinton didn t just pull this plan out of any bodily orifices the nsa has to have been working on it for years while it s possible that denning and other prominent people just happened to start arguing for such a system it seems more likely that there was a suggestion involved if this guess is wrong i apologize pgp key by finger or e mail eli ebrandt jarthur claremont edu
|
6,529 |
sci.crypt
|
the source of that announcement the message from the nist about the clipper chip comes from the following address clipper csrc ncsl nist gov clipper chip announcement just who is that i asked myself or rather i asked the computer telnet csrc ncsl nist gov trying connected to csrc ncsl nist gov escape character is first org sendmail nist ready at sat apr edt expn clipper csspab mail gw ncsl nist gov denning cs georgetown edu hoffman seas gwu edu mkapor eff org rotenberg cpsr org rivest mit edu mhellman stanford edu alanrp aol com dparker sri com jim rsa com branstad tis com mgrsplus csmes ncsl nist gov quit first org closing connection connection closed well isn t that interesting dorothy denning mitch kapor marc rotenberg ron rivest jim bidzos and others the government rsa tis cpsr and the eff are all represented i don t suppose anybody within any of these organizations would care to comment or is this just the white house s idea of a cruel joke on these peoples inboxes marc marc horowitz n nzu marc mit edu
|
6,530 |
sci.crypt
|
remote file system security in light of my recent paranoia concerning government proposals i d love to see a unix based encryption scheme that kept some files encrypted on the host machine say all the files in your home directory used a key system that could not be compromised by eavesdropping over a modem line it seems that this would require modifications to a shell program and a way of telling whether a file was encrypted or not among other things i d love to know about potential security holes in such a system does such a system exist if it were made easy to use and readily available i think it would be a good thing tm i realize that this would probably just involve putting a nice front end on a readily available and very secure encryption scheme but it should be done thanks for the ear brad
|
6,531 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow brad clarinet com brad templeton and yes this has to be a public key system or it would be almost impossible to handle it might not be rsa but that does not mean that pkp doesn t get paid until pkp has the patent on the general concept of public key encryption as well as the particular implementation known as rsa hmm my first thought was that they re using diffie hellman exponential session key exchange or an equivalent however the diffie hellman patent like the hellman merkle one on public key systems claims all equivalents so the basic point stands interestingly a quote from jim bidzos showed up in the media real soon after the announcement and he sounded very pissed maybe he hadn t yet realized that pkp might have just struck gold all they have to do is get someone to admit the general scheme that the clipper uses jef jef poskanzer jef netcom com jef well sf ca us an object never serves the same function as its image or its name rene magritte
|
6,532 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article qpg finn dns nmsu edu amolitor nmsu edu andrew molitor writes in article tcmayc m xv jex netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes tim may whose sig block may get him busted in the new regime isn t this just a little melodramatic not at all two weeks ago i registered a concern about some programming that was being conducted by a student organisation here at the university of texas at san antonio as a result i was interrogated by the capus police who also attempted to create a positive identification file photo fingerprints etc i refused to permit this and filed a complaint with the university administration the vice president for business affairs the boss of the campus police stated that he had no interest in the legal constitutional implications of those actions the greatest threat facing the citizens of the united states in the decade of the s is the united states government at all levels federal state local all opinions are mine and i reserve the right to deny them at any time wwh
|
6,533 |
sci.crypt
|
re fifth amendment and passwords in article apr sugra uucp ken sugra uucp kenneth ng writes in article apr linus mitre org ptrei bistromath mitre org peter trei writes judge i grant you immunity from whatever may be learned from the key itself you the keyphrase is i confess to deliberately evading copyright the file encoded with this keyphrase contains illegal scans of copyrighted peanuts strips judge and cp oh how will they get you now i m not saying that they won t or can t or even that they shouldn t but what legal mechanism will they use should we be crossposting this to misc legal hm could another court try you via a bypass of the double jeopardy amendment like they are doing in the lapd trial ie your judge is a state judge and then a federal judge retries you under the justification that its not the same trail no the lapd officers were tried first by the state of california on charges of police brutality and secondly by the federal government on depriving rk of his civil rights a different crime the scenario i outline is more similar to the oliver north trial ollie confessed to treason aiding an enemy of the us during senate hearings under immunity the team which was later to prosecute him on criminal charges had to sequester itself from all reports of on s immunized testimony on s lawyer brought up the probability that at least someone on the team had heard about the senate testimony and it was a strong factor against the prosecution which is one of the reasons this on is still walking around free today peter trei ptrei mitre org
|
6,534 |
sci.crypt
|
re the source of that announcement telnet csrc ncsl nist gov trying connected to csrc ncsl nist gov escape character is first org sendmail nist ready at sat apr edt expn clipper csspab mail gw ncsl nist gov denning cs georgetown edu hoffman seas gwu edu mkapor eff org rotenberg cpsr org rivest mit edu mhellman stanford edu alanrp aol com dparker sri com jim rsa com branstad tis com mgrsplus csmes ncsl nist gov quit first org closing connection connection closed note also telnet csmes ncsl nist gov trying connected to csmes ncsl nist gov escape character is csmes ncsl nist gov sendmail nist rbj dougm ready at sat apr edt expn mgrsplus mcnulty ecf ncsl nist gov irene gilbert igilbert dennis branstad branstad robert rosenthal rmr gene troy troy smid st ncsl nist gov dennis steinauer dds katzke st ncsl nist gov telnet mail gw ncsl nist gov trying connected to mail gw ncsl nist gov escape character is mail gw ncsl nist gov sendmail rbj jck ready at sat apr edt expn csspab burrows ecf mcnulty ecf bill colvin colvin gangemi dockmaster ncsc mil john kuyers kuyers slambert cgin cto citicorp com lipner mitre org gallagher dockmaster ncsc mil cindy rand postmaster dot gov walker tis com willis rand org eddie zeitler zeitler cris castro castro whitehurst vnet ibm com telnet st ncsl nist gov trying connected to st ncsl nist gov escape character is st ncsl nist gov sendmail nbs rbj ready at sat apr edt expn smid miles smid smid expn katzke stuart katzke katzke quit st ncsl nist gov closing connection connection closed by foreign host telnet ecf ncsl nist gov trying connected to ecf ncsl nist gov escape character is ecf ncsl nist gov tgv multinet smtp service ready expn burrows burrows james burrows expn mcnulty mcnulty lynn mcnulty quit ecf ncsl nist gov tgv multinet smtp service complete whois h rs internic net first org national institute of standards and technology first dom a nist gaithersburg md domain name first org administrative contact wack john p jpw wack enh nist gov fts technical contact zone contact hunt craig w cwh hunt enh nist gov fts record last updated on dec domain servers in listed order dove nist gov ames arc nasa gov the internic registration services host only contains internet information networks asn s domains and poc s please use the whois server at nic ddn mil for milnet information
|
6,535 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow in article brad clarinet com brad templeton writes the greatest danger of the escrow database if it were kept on disk would be the chance that a complete copy could somehow leak out you of course then it s hard to backup however i think the consequences of no backup the data is not there when a warrant comes are worse than the consequences of a secret backup if the data isn t there when the warrant comes you effectively have secure crypto if secret backups are kept then you effectively have no crypto thus this poster is essentialy arguing no crypto is better than secure crypto if the data isn t there when the warrant comes then the government will just have to use normal law enforcement techniques to catch crooks is this so bad btw bugging isn t yet a normal law enforcement technique with the privacy clipper it will become a normal technique jim information farming at for addr phone finger a a the ohio state university jebright magnus acs ohio state edu jim ebright e mail jre osu edu
|
6,536 |
sci.crypt
|
re the source of that announcement also note from branstad tis com and walker tis com whois h rs internic net tis dom trusted information systems inc tis dom washington road route glenwood md domain name tis com administrative contact walker stephen t stw walker tis com technical contact zone contact dalva david i did dave tis com record last updated on jul domain servers in listed order tis com la tis com and dockmaster is an infamous address seth finkelstein sethf athena mit edu the road to hell is paved with good intentions
|
6,537 |
sci.crypt
|
re how to detect use of an illegal cipher in article c nmb cof news claremont edu ebrandt jarthur claremont edu eli brandt writes i probably shouldn t say this but they could try to detect the use of an illegal cypher by transmitting in the clear some statistical properties of the plaintext an old fashioned wiretap could then detect the use of pre encryption which would drastically increase the measured entropy of the input a countermeasure to this would be to use steganographic techniques which put out voice this way to detect pre encryption may be defeated one can do transformation of the spectrum of encrypted signal just by adding some pre arranged in the beginning of communication function i think so say you can do fft of your encrypted signal just thinking for pgp public key finger mkagalen lynx dac northeastern edu
|
6,538 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article bu edu uni acs bu edu shaen bernhardt writes i wish i could agree with you ask yourself this why would any private sector entity wish to buy a crypto system that was known to be at least partially compromised key escrows in this instance why would any private sector entity wish to buy a crypto system that had not been properly evaluated i e algorythm not publically released the answer seems obvious to me they wouldn t there is other hardware out there not compromised des as an example triple des as a better one what follows is my opinion it is not asserted to be the truth so no flames please it comes out of a background of years as a senior corporate staff executive in two fortune companies i d be happy to use a crypto system supplied by the nsa for business if they told me it was more secure than des and in particular resistant to attempts by japanese french and other competitive companies and governments to break i d be happy to do so even with escrowed keys provided i was happy about the bona fides of the escrow agencies the federal reserve would certainly satisfy me as would something set up by one of the big accounting firms i d trust the nsa or the president if they stated there were no trap doors i d be even happier if a committee of independent experts examined the thing under seal of secrecy and reported back that it was secure i d trust something from the nsa long before i d trust something from some swiss or anybody japanese this may seem surprising to some here but i suggest most corporations would feel the same way most many some pick one corporations have an attitude that the nsa is part of our government and we support our government as one very famous ceo put it to me one day just some perspective from another point of view david sternlight great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our information errors and omissions excepted
|
6,539 |
sci.crypt
|
re wh announcement q who was consulted the congress industry a we have on going discussions with congress and industry on encryption issues and expect those discussions to intensify as we carry out our review of encryption policy we have briefed members of congress and industry leaders on the decisions related to this initiative congress so we re playing politics before we talk to cpsr academia the public internet users i ve heard of top down design but top down democracy just whose state district are the chip manufacturers in q if the administration were unable to find a technological solution like the one proposed would the administration be willing to use legal remedies to restrict access to more powerful encryption devices a this is a fundamental policy question which will be considered during the broad policy review bs about the wonderfulness of the key escrow system the administration is not saying since encryption threatens the public safety and effective law enforcement we will prohibit it outright as some countries have effectively done they ll just provide an easily compromised version to jq public nor is the u s saying that every american as a matter of right is entitled to an unbreakable commercial encryption product maybe we need a cra cryptographic rights amendment there is a false tension created in the assessment that this issue is an either or proposition rather both concerns can be and in fact are harmoniously balanced through a reasoned balanced approach such as is proposed with the clipper chip and similar encryption techniques nice lullaby but why am i not soothed also in article leland stanford edu arc leland stanford edu andrew richard conway writes p s i can t work out why the us government doesn t want to sell them overseas after all they are rather easy for us interests to decode so make a perfect tool for industrial military espionage lulling anyone stupid enough to buy it into a false sense of security you will notice that there is no mention anywhere about safety for non americans why repeat themselves it appears to some and the story looks pretty convincing to me too that the justice department stole a case tracking system modified it and distributed it to friendly police and suchlike agencies around the world eg the canadian mounties of course i have no doubt they swore scout s honor that there were no backdoors with that kind of intelligence who d want to be swamped with terabytes of commercial traffic dwight tuinstra best tuinstra sandman ece clarkson edu tolerable tuinstrd craft camp clarkson edu homo sapiens planetary cancer news at six
|
6,540 |
sci.crypt
|
re the battle is joined in article apr qualcomm com karn servo qualcomm com phil karn writes it looks like dorothy denning s wrong headed ideas have gotten to the administration even sooner than we feared if the administration is this far along is it possible that the government been working on it for a while and has been using the dennings to prime the pump so to speak or as the judas goat whether paid off just gullible or what doesn t really matter it might also be possible that the nsa whoever has had the idea for this for quite a while has been promoting it denning et al and siezed the new opportunity a new administration who wants to spend more money on espionage than bush did whatever i m not so sure that the cause effect order is totally obvious you will lose your drug free and proud ribbon two days later you will catch a neighborhood kid smoking it
|
6,541 |
sci.crypt
|
re the battle is joined in article c nn i d q news claremont edu ebrandt jarthur claremont edu eli brandt writes in article apr qualcomm com karn servo qualcomm com phil karn writes it looks like dorothy denning s wrong headed ideas have gotten to the administration even sooner than we feared i d lay long odds that it was the other way around clinton didn t just pull this plan out of any bodily orifices the nsa has to have been working on it for years i first heard rumors of a similar government proposal in risks digest in or peter trei ptrei mitre org
|
6,542 |
sci.crypt
|
clipper chip i have lurked here a bit lately and though some of the math is unknown to me found it interesting i thought i would post an article i found in the saturday april toronto star clipper chip to protect privacy washington reuter president bill clinton announced yesterday a plan to plant a new clipper chip in every government telephone and computer line to prevent eavesdropping eventually the chips developed by the government s national institute for standards and technology would be used by commercial and private electronics communication users the white house said that to assure privacy each device containing the encryption devices would be assigned two unique keys numbers that will be needed by government agencies to decode messages the attorney general has been assigned the task of arranging that the keys are deposited in two key escrow data bases access to them would be limited to government officials with legal authorization to conduct a wiretap the white house said in a statement dan mckinnon canada remote systems toronto ontario
|
6,543 |
sci.crypt
|
re the source of that announcement marc horowitz n nzu marc mit edu wrote the message from the nist about the clipper chip comes from the following address clipper csrc ncsl nist gov clipper chip announcement just who is that i asked myself or rather i asked the computer telnet csrc ncsl nist gov list of name elided for brevity well isn t that interesting dorothy denning mitch kapor marc rotenberg ron rivest jim bidzos and others the government rsa tis cpsr and the eff are all represented i don t suppose anybody within any of these organizations would care to comment or is this just the white house s idea of a cruel joke on these peoples inboxes i know that at least one person on that list says the first he heard of clipper was in the friday morning newspaper and another has already fired off a letter of protest to nist my point i suspect this list interesting as it is for various reasons does not represent the cabal that put this proposal together some of them yes others no this may be nothing more than a mailing list of people who get crypto related announcements from nsa er i mean nist tim may timothy c may crypto anarchy encryption digital money tcmay netcom com anonymous networks digital pseudonyms zero knowledge reputations information markets w a s t e aptos ca black markets collapse of governments higher power public key pgp and mailsafe available
|
6,544 |
sci.crypt
|
is there any security in the clipper it seems to me that all discussions about clipper security are almost irrelevant if i cannot choose the key but have to use a key chosen for me by the foundry the security of the whole universe of users is as good or as bad as the security of vlsi technologies inc it is a trivial effort to run any ciphertext agains all the keys ever manufactured after all we are talking about to million keys that will ever be manufactured the key depositories can be as secure and incorruptible as they wish to be nobody cares anyway now if someone would convince me that the shipping docks of vti att and others are impenetrable remember the chips have to ship with the key you or the dealer are going to submit it to the authorities eventually i d be a bit happier but do we really believe that the various governments including ours won t have the full lists of all the keys ever manufactured did i miss something here my own opinions quite obviously from ze ev wurman email zeev key amdahl com or zeev ccc amdahl com organization amdahl corp landing parkway m s freemont ca phone office fax attn zeev wurman
|
6,545 |
sci.crypt
|
re the old key registration idea begin pgp signed message in article qn ic hp access digex net pcw access digex com peter wayner writes the system is vulnerable to simple phone swapping attacks like this criminals will quickly figure this out and go to town depends its possible that the phone sends its serial number in the clear at some specified interval so all a listener needs to do is get that sn and then get the key for it so swapping phones isn t a problem for the gov t that is they still know that this line belongs to you so they just watch the line and see the sn and then they get the key for that sn in either case i think we need to look at this a bit deeper jbl mw wxld well i think this is understood the major problem is that a lot of people just don t trust this key escrow stuff and the fact that the algorithms are classified so yes a lot of this needs to be looked at closer derek pgp key available upon request on the key server pgp public keys toxicwaste mit edu derek atkins mit electrical engineering and computer science secretary mit student information processing board sipb mit media laboratory speech research group warlord mit edu pp asel n nwh
|
6,546 |
sci.crypt
|
re pem and mime in article qg m e nigel msen com emv garnet msen com edward vielmetti writes w c newell jr wcn u washington edu wrote before we can have a global multimedia e mail solution there must be some definition of a minimum service level and mime does not provide for this yet before the internet will invest in software people need to see content i would suggest that attractive mime formatted news messages a day would be sufficient to get a few people thinking about adding mime support to news readers esp if the content is really worth it imho we have a long way to go before the unix specific muas newsreaders etc reach the service levels of the other commercial platforms there ought to be such a definition consisting of known object data types and rules for their handling included in the transport specification document yes but there is also a long way to go before most mac pc and windows muas and newsreaders are ready to handle the sheer volume of news and mail that many unix specific tools are able to cope with when the choice is more feechurs or make the damn thing fast enough to keep up with the flood you have to bet that fast enough wins ed as usual makes a very good point one time a friend of mine at sun sent me an e mail he composed it using the sun openwindows mailtool which handles non mime attachments and the like since i don t use mailtool i had to manually save it cut paste and then uudecode the actual attachment what i got after a not inconsiderable amount of time spent doing this was an audio file the original message was over kb of mail headers and uuencoded data the resulting audio message was a single sentence that i transcribed as a character message if he had sent me the sentence in plain text the e mail would have been around bytes and it would have taken me about seconds to process it at most instead it was k and it took at least a minute a complete waste of my time and bandwidth as far as i m concerned sending plain text is still the most efficient method of transmission given the same transport mechanism i shudder to think what would happen if everyone started posting their usenet articles as audio files instead of plain text meltdown of the net predicted film at eleven back to mono this sub thread no longer has anything to do with pem or administrative policy so i ve redirected followups back to comp mail mime greg greg earle phone fax internet earle isolar tujunga ca us uucp isolar earle elroy jpl nasa gov a k a elroy isolar earle
|
6,547 |
sci.crypt
|
need source of feal encrytion algorithm hi i am interested in the source of feal encryption algorithm does someone of you know where i can get the source from or where i can find documentation about feal thanks in advance ciao hermann please email me
|
6,548 |
sci.crypt
|
re don t fight clipper chip subvert or replace it the clipper chip is just the culmination of dorthy denning et all but lets ignore that for the moment the fundamental question is can the government stop me from using encryption ignoring for the moment the question of patented processes such as public keys can the government stop me from using an encryption process if the answer is yes then what freedom we have in this country is truly gone and its time to get out the guns or the lawyers depending upon which causes more damage and to whom however assuming that i can still encrypt things as i please who cares about the clipper chip as far as i m concerned a phone line is insecure period i don t care if they encrypt it ways from sunday if i didn t do the encrypting i don t trust it this is the attitude that everyone else should have instead of worrying about a clipper chip simply connect your handset to your computer and feed the voice single through process encrypt and transmit over the phone the guy on the other hand then does the same in reverse can t work you say no standard you say obviously you have never uses pgp anyone who expects the government to protect their freedoms is kidding themselves only you can protect your own freedoms one final thought addressed to eff do you support the implementation of any form of encryption where the encryption key must be revealed if you do why if not why what specific actions are you planning to take to either support or stop this proposal if you do not support this proposal what alternatives do you offer the jester proof windows is a virus it is very widespread it eats up your disk space it slows down your computer it takes control over your computer it performs disk access at random times it displays silly messages on your screen it randomly crashes the computer vesselin
|
6,549 |
sci.crypt
|
wh proposal from police point of view it might pay to start looking at what this proposal might mean to a police agency it just might be a bad idea for them too ok suppose the ny state police want to tap a suspect s phone they need a warrant just like the old days but unlike the old days they now need to a get two federal agencies to give them the two parts of the key now what happens if there s a tiff between the two escrow houses posession release of keys becomes a political bargaining chit state and lower level police agencies have to watch the big boys play politics while potentially good leads disappear lives and property are lost statutes of limitations run out etc not to mention a moderately clever person who suspects the police are after her him will be buying new phones faster than tap requests can be processed or using stolen ones will the turing police come and arrest you for transmitting without a dialing license there s also bureacracy and security problems within each escrow house how will requests for key disclosure be authenticated put in enough safeguards of the kind bureaucrats and activists feel comfortable with and it might take a long time to get that key even when a request is approved how is the key going to be disclosed will it be encrypted by a clipper type chip for transmission in a bureaucracy the size of the federal government with a databank of the necessary size and data traffic of the projected volume there s going to be a lot of weak links how many of these kinds of problems will be open for public or expert scrutiny furthermore the feds might be leery of handing completed keys around even to state police agencies a trust and security issue this would be an especially acute issue if some other state s police had mishandled a key resulting in lawsuits financial settlements and political embarassment so the feds implement it this way b some federal agency gets the keys performs the tap and turns the results over to the ny state police but let s say cuomo s been causing some problems over a clinton aid to urban areas proposal or there just happens to be a turf war going on between the state cops and the justice department on a case now not only do we have the keys as a political chit we have an extra player in the game and we have the tap s tapes as another bargaining chit again the state police lose i understand that legal wiretaps are quite expensive to maintain in scenario b who pays the bill dwight tuinstra best tuinstra sandman ece clarkson edu tolerable tuinstrd craft camp clarkson edu homo sapiens planetary cancer news at six
|
6,550 |
sci.crypt
|
re text of white house announcement and q as on clipper chip encryption andrew richard conway arc leland stanford edu wrote p s i can t work out why the us government doesn t want to sell them overseas after all they are rather easy for us interests to decode so make a perfect tool for industrial military espionage lulling anyone stupid enough to buy it into a false sense of security you will notice that there is no mention anywhere about safety for non americans don t forget you are in the country that wouldn t let the russians buy apple ii s because of security concerns ben bena bruce cs monash edu au
|
6,551 |
sci.crypt
|
re don t fight clipper chip subvert or replace it in article ygoland wright ygoland wright seas ucla edu the jester writes ignoring for the moment the question of patented processes such as public keys can the government stop me from using an encryption process following precedent in other areas the government is likely to put a tax on encryption technology once the tax is imposed it becomes a federal matter and suspicision of an unlicensed cryptographic tool will bring the batf or fbi tossing grenades into your house the batf appears to be the logical agency to enforce such regulations federal control over alocohol tobacco and firearms is similary based on taxes look at the fcc they won t allow sale of any receiever that can receive bands that are supposed to be private this has nothing to do with any desire to prevent harmful interference if the government can make a radio receiver illegal what makes you think they won t claim the right to control encryption john carr jfc athena mit edu
|
6,552 |
sci.crypt
|
re the battle is joined in article c nn i d q news claremont edu ebrandt jarthur claremont edu eli brandt writes in article apr qualcomm com karn servo qualcomm com phil karn writes it looks like dorothy denning s wrong headed ideas have gotten to the administration even sooner than we feared i d lay long odds that it was the other way around clinton didn t just pull this plan out of any bodily orifices the nsa has to have been working on it for years while it s possible that denning and other prominent people just happened to start arguing for such a system it seems more likely that there was a suggestion involved if this guess is wrong i apologize i m sure dorothy denning is an honest person and wouldn t lie to us simply think up a question to ask her about her involvement but be very careful to phrase it in such a way that there can be no jesuitical evasion or a true but wholly misleading answer in this country mi are experts at answering these questions for instance there was a british journalist jonathon moyle killed in south america a couple of years ago parliament asked was he an mi employee no turns out afterwards he wasn t paid therefore wasn t an employee they could equally have said he wasn t an agent he went abroad on his private business with no brief from mi but was interviewed and debriefed at length only on his return g
|
6,553 |
sci.crypt
|
re text of white house announcement and q as on clipper chip encryption the dead giveaway is the repeated protestations that the new plan is aimed at criminals drug dealers terrorists etc you d think the tactic would be too obvious to trot out yet again after a decade of sarah and the rest of the brady bunch using it to destroy the second amendment but evidently the control nuts feel it will serve them one more time as far as the export needs of american companies are concerned i could almost believe that the plan to saddle the us industry with a hidden sabotaged algorithm was invented by a cabal of japanese lobbyists
|
6,554 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article apr clarinet com brad clarinet com brad templeton writes in article tcmayc m xv jex netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes getting the court order to reveal the key also makes decipherable all past conversations which may be on tape or disk or whatver as i understand the proposal i could be wrong but i ve seen no mention of session keys being the escrowed entities true in theory in practice the technology of cellular phones will probably be spread spectrum and quite difficult to record the crypttext without the key if the frequency path depends on they key as i understand it to it could be made effectively impossible to record i am not an expert in the cryptography science but some basic things seem evident to me things which this clinton clipper do not address the all pertain to opportunites for abuse and conclusions based on what i have seen the membership of this group except for two notable persons agree to if anything bad is possible by the government in theory it almost always ends up happening in fact so the key is to make abuse impossible question authority and remember power does corrupt i think one has to regard this whole idea in the sense that it will be expanded to include other data forms such as data transfer and stored data and as such should be treated as if it were expanded or such expansion will be almost impossible to stop using clipper as a precident there was a hint of that in the proposal remember that said please bear with me i am not very articulate so i take more words to say what others could say much more briefly thank you once it hits land you can record it if you have telco access the telco isn t supposed to give that without a warrant that s the rule today as i suggested this is now the hint is in the proposal that this or similar proposals are being considered for other forms of encryptions such as data transfer data files and such largely dependent on how this thing is accepted or flies i think one would be wise to treat this in the manner one would when not if it gets expanded to other areas than cellular phones i think this is guaranteed to happen if this proposal gets by salami politics it has been and is used in several other areas it is certain to be used here government is not going to easily give up on the idea that they should be able to eavesedrop whenever they want to court order required has proven to be a rather flimsy guarantee if the case warrants they can always sieze the material and force one to give the key or sit in jail forever on periodically renewed contempt charges so it is not denying the justice system the information nor the ability to lock someone up if guilty or refuses to divulge the means to access the info this is not protected under the fifth one can be forced to perform acts that would result in divulging incriminating evidence so blocking restrictions on private encryption is not preventing legitimate law enforcement it does make illegitimate law enforcement a bunch more difficult especially fishing expeditions without the target s knowlege don t give up the right to be safe from that that should be non negotiable and clinton and co know it which is probably why they quietly developed this thing figuring if they get it this far they can ram it on through how come those consulted could be roughly described as us insiders they cannot quietely impliment it though when they ban other schemes to ensure its exclusive use hence the nice pr document to try and reassure everyone don t buy into it has government really earned that kind of trust past or future to be secure and free one must keep government honest and the only way to do that is to make abuse impossible not unlikely or difficult but even so the evidence would not be admissible i think unless the judge so ordered i think that even interception of the crypttext without a warrant would be illegal cops can t record today s plain cellular calls and then ask a judge hey can we have permission to listen to those tapes can they so what one could use information gained by re use of the keys saved after the last case was finished or other means master key backdoor easily broken algorithm to find other evidence which given to a judge would authorize a tap which wouldn t have been possible otherwise this has been the more common manner of abuse of wiretaps in the past for local cops this might be workable to keep them honest but the feds have a workaround somehow bet on it does anyone really believe for example that the government will use a scheme nsa cannot listen in on scanning for keywords either easily defeated in realtime or via a master key i sure don t this whole thing sounds like something to eliminate the need to use old fashioned police work to build a case in the past eavesdropping was rather easy with or without a court order i think the law enforcement community has become a bit spoiled and will resist changes that require them to revert to using old fashioned detective work i just find it somewhat surprising coming from a bunch that cares so much about civil and individual rights that puts people first the question is put people first to where with the innards not being revealed how is one to be sure there doesn t exist a master key for use by nsa etc so they can do their keyword scan etc on conversations they routinely monitor without a specific court order remember the cellular phone limitiation is only temporary bet on it and so far i have not heard about police telling people that they have been tapped and nothing incriminating was found what is to keep them from simply keeping the keys on file for next time after awhile they would have quite a collection kept especially for folks they deem disruptive and if they get only one key that would reduce the search space a lot unless it is an rsa scheme remember nixon years need for court orders really slowed them down didn t it and unless the escrow accounts are not government controlled fat chance i see one ending up being under say treasury the other under justice it could be worth some serious bucks to some folks to get keys to a competitor s clinton clipper or descendent when this idea is expanded to be used for all non government encryption enough bucks would get one the keys or the innards for this algorithm perhaps not an important concern but given past government behavior and the other problems worse of course if the government then uses this clinton clipper to argue for restrictions on unapproved encryption this is the main concern of most of us i think the camel s nose in the tent etc yes that is a major concern but i think that they think they can win just by having of the usa use this system they don t even have to care about the cautious that s left they don t catch the really smart crooks anyway john gotti who would have to be retarded not to realize he was likely to be wiretapped glibly chatted away on his tapped phone about murder plans that s why he s in jail now hard to believe but true what will one do when it is expanded to data storage encryption you can bet that if clipper is accepted that will be next on the agenda it is even hinted at in the proposal read it carefully expect the argumet well if you got nothing to hide fine then using that argument one should not object to video cameras being installed in every room of one s home granted an exteme expansion of the idea but the principle holds private stuff should remain private even from a govt fishing expedition and laws rules may change in the future as to safeguards when it comes to the fed government safeguards are pretty meaningless if they want to do get something don t work so hard to give up some rather treasured rights or establish bad precidents please the price could be hell to pay later this scheme can succeed without laws forbidding more which people would fight a lot harder they like this enough that they are dropping the so called digital telephony proposal according to rumours however the meaning of that is complex since they still want to get at the crypttext on telco systems and that requires a bit of work people would fight laws forbidding more now but in say two years because we have this crisis situation which must be addressed by some drastic action just this added reasonable restriction will only bother those who have someting to hide etc please don t buy into it if the clinton clipper is so very good why not make its algrithm public so many people can exchange ideas and examine it rather than a few isolated respected experts respected by whom for what perhaps a certain professor who likes key banks would be one of the selected experts this does seem to expand on some ideas the person was advocating if i recall how would anybody know that what the experts examine is the same as what will end up being used in the clipper chip if it is kept secret perhaps the clipper will use a crippled version with a master key provision or features not present in the version subjected for study and evaluation by the experts and who chooses the expertes the government no conflict of interest there and isn t it a requirement for any decent encryption scheme that it not have its effectiveness reduced by having the algrorithm widely known i was lead to believe that one should assume the other side has everything you have except for the key s i recall ideas presented to this group are rejected if a requirement exists the algorithm be secret another question since it is a safe bet this clipper thing would not be used for government security they are regarding it as not real secure but good enough for common folk i think i would like to see a full description not a pr non statement of just what good enough means i think when saying how strong it is good enough really means not very the excuse that other countries have these restrictions is not acceptable other countries do not have our bill of rights and constitution which the people not the governments of those other countries often regard with envy what we have as rights they have as revokable privileges and if we expect to retain those rights and protections we must not allow them to be gutted because we just gotta have this thing to fight crime we have allready have our bill of rights pretty much torn to shreds we should not permit more weakining for yet another noble cause instead we should be trying to repair the damage our crime problem may have a number of causes but too many rights and safeguards is not a signifigant one a broken court system and poor police work are a much more signifigant cause as having too many rights disregarding addressing the root causes for crime etc btw those who suggest that this is just an attack on clinton believe this i would be going ballistic reagardless who seriously proposed this thing it is just another step in a gradual erosion of our rights under the constitution or bill of rights the last couple of decades have been a non stop series of end runs around the protections of the constitution it has to stop now is as good a time as any if it isn t too late allready brad templeton clarinet communications corp sunnyvale ca pat rwing uucp without prejudice ucc pat myrto seattle wa if all else fails try uunet pilchuck rwing pat wisdom only two things are infinite the universe and human stupidity and i am not sure about the former albert einstien
|
6,555 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more amolitor nmsu edu andrew molitor writes yes those evil guys in the fbi can probably with some effort abuse the system i got news for you if the evil guys in the fbi decide they want to persecute you they re gonna and if richard nixon had had this kind of toy he wouldn t have had to send people into the watergate but that s not really the issue the real issue is whether this will be used to justify a ban against individuals use of private i e anything else encryption methods unrelated question isn t the term clipper as neat as it is already taken by intergraph al
|
6,556 |
sci.crypt
|
re source of random bits on a unix workstation bennett todd salomon brothers inc ny bet sbi com wrote however unless i missed something the only source they suggested aside from a hardware rng that seems available and unguessable by an intruder when a unix is fresh booted is i o buffers related to network traffic i believe my solution basically uses that strategy without requiring me to reach into the kernel a few more sources are statistics on your filesystems easily and quickly obtained and the output from the rusage system call you can also exec a finger to one or more favorite heavily used systems though this can take several seconds cf the source code to ripem on ripem msu edu mark r
|
6,557 |
sci.crypt
|
re an open letter to mr clinton in article strnlghtc m cv hx netcom com strnlght netcom com david sternlight writes here s a simple way to convert the clipper proposal to an unexceptionable one make it voluntary that is you get high quality secure nsa classified technology if you agree to escrow your key otherwise you are on your own as long as you are on your own means that you can use your own encryption i m sold bruce
|
6,558 |
sci.crypt
|
need help i am currently writing a paper on computer protocols security i would appreciate your help i currently have no insight into these topics except that they relate to security in multilevel security network please semd me any references books faqs or contact persons names and internet addresses the topics i am interested in the firewall gateway model as implemented in internet gateways kerberos authentication service please send me a private e mail at eldar sfu ca and or post it on the board thanks a lot danny
|
6,559 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article qpg finn dns nmsu edu amolitor nmsu edu andrew molitor writes in article tcmayc m xv jex netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes but is it any worse than the current unsecure system it becomes much worse of course if the government then uses this clinton clipper to argue for restrictions on unapproved encryption this is the main concern of most of us i think the camel s nose in the tent etc not to pick on mr may in particular of course but isn t this kind of the domino theory when one little country falls its neighbor will surely follow and before you know it we re all mining salt in siberia for not turning in our captain crunch secret decoder rings surely the hypothesis relying on the least wild assumptions is to take this at face value our lads at the fort were asked to cook up something that s pretty secure with a key that can be escrowed neatly and they did the government plans to sell this thing for the reasons they state yes those evil guys in the fbi can probably with some effort abuse the system i got news for you if the evil guys in the fbi decide they want to persecute you they re gonna and you re gonna hate it fact is the fbi doesn t want to listen to your phone calls and if they do and if you re using triple des they ll just get a parabolic microphone and point it at your head with e mail if they can t break your pgp encryption they ll just call up one of their tempest trucks and read the electromagnetic emmisions from your computer or terminal note that measures to protect yourself from tempest surveillance are still classified as far as i know this is pretty clearly an effort by the government to do exactly what they re saying they re doing as is typical with governments it s mismanaged and full of holes and compromises as is typical with our government it s not too bad could be worse my interpretation andrew tim may whose sig block may get him busted in the new regime isn t this just a little melodramatic if the new regime comes to fruition make sure you protect your first amendment rights by asserting your second amendment rights doug holland
|
6,560 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in apr clarinet com brad clarinet com brad templeton writes it occurs to me that if they get a wiretap order on you and the escrow houses release your code to the cops your code is now no longer secure a very good point it s in the hands of cops and while i am sure most of the time they are good their security will not be as good as the escrow houses why should we expect the cops to be honest they re underpaid for the risks they face every day the media dumps on the all the time and blames them for all sorts of discrimination brutality how can we expect them to be more than human besides there are lots of cases of police abuses ranging from protection scams to outright robbery when i worked in d c there was a breakin at a local radio shack and the alarm company heard the cops responding to the call over the audio pickup in the store what this effectively means is that if they perform a wiretap on you at the end of the wiretap they should be obligated to inform you that a tap was performed and replace for free the clipper chip in your cellular phone so that it is once again a code known only to the escrow houses then you would know that big brother had been listening does he really want to let you know do the police normally reveal every tap they do even if no charges are laid in many ways it would be a positive step if they had to judges set time limits on warrants i assume at the end of the time limit they should have to renew or replace your chip that s if we go with this scheme which i am not sure i agree with i m completely against anything that makes it easier for the government to encroach on the rights of individuals the founders of this country spent a lot of effort limiting the power of the government and specifying exactly what the governments rights were and this didn t include a gov t spy in every bedroom imho there are entirely too many things going on today designed to preserve the government organism at the expense of individuals look around and reread and many early heinlein books aren t there many parallels between the thought police can you spell waco texas and heinlein s crazy years bill internet bill celestial com bill campbell celestial software uucp thebes camco bill east mercer way uunet camco bill mercer island wa speed costs money how fast do you want to go
|
6,561 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow in article strnlghtc lgfi jqa netcom com strnlght netcom com david sternlight writes though some may argue about the nose of the camel it s worth noting that the government proposal is limited to scrambled telephony if it is only used for that purpose and does not extend to electronic mail or file encryption then it is an improvement over the current mass produced standard civilian technology which with a few exceptions is limited to easy to break inverters note that the big issue for the feds is the continued ability to wiretap before we go off the deep end with long discusions about secure crypto for e mail and files let s focus on this one question that was not asked in the release is whether this proposal is limited to telephony or if the government intends to expand it though i share many of the concerns expressed by some i find the proposal less threatening than many others since right now most americans have no secure telephony and any jerk with a pair of clip leads and a goat can eavesdrop this would also plug up the security hole in cellular and cordless phones reading between the lines i infer that the system is highly secure without access to the keys this would meet the needs of u s businesses confronted by rich and powerful adversaries including french and japanese security services and rich japanese companies it allows the nsa to make available some of its better stuff while protecting law enforcement needs most legitimate u s corporations trust the nsa and would be delighted to have a high security system certified by them even at the price of depositing keys in escrow i see no difficulty in creating a reliable escrow corporations entrust their secrets to attorneys every day of the week and that system has worked pretty well from my point of view this is a fair starting point there are concerns that need to be addressed including the reliability of the escrows but in return we get access to high security crypto many have suggested that des and other systems may be breakable by the nsa and hence others similarly skilled and endowed there is at least a good possibility which should be checked that the proposed system is not so breakable it doesn t have to be nor does it have to have trapdoors if the government can get the keys pursuant to a legitimate court order thus they can protect legitimate communications against economic adversaries while still being able to eavesdrop on crooks pursuant to a court order let me ask you this would you trust richard nixon with your crypto keys i wouldn t doug holland
|
6,562 |
sci.crypt
|
clipper chip technical details i received the following two notes from martin hellman with details on how clipper will work they are posted with his permission the implications of some details are fascinating date sat apr pdt from martin hellman hellman isl stanford edu to a long list of recipients subject clipper chip most of you have seen the announcement in friday s ny times etc about nist national institute of standards technology announcing the clipper chip crypto device several messges on the net have asked for more technical details and some have been laboring under understandable misunderstandings given the lack of details in the news articles so here to help out is your friendly nsa link me i was somewhat surprised friday to get a call from the agency which supplied many of the missing details i was told the info was public so here it is the cc of this to dennis branstad at nist is mostly as a double check on my facts since i assume he is aware of all this please let me know if i have anything wrong the clipper chip will have a secret crypto algorithm embedded in silicon each chip will have two secret bit keys one will be the same for all chips ie a system wide key and the other will be unit specific i don t know what nist and nsa will call them but i will call them the system key sk and unit key uk in this message the ic will be designed to be extremely difficult to reverse so that the system key can be kept secret aside it is clear that they also want to keep the algorithm secret and in my opinion it may be as much for that as this stated purpose the unit key will be generated as the xor of two bit random numbers k and k uk k k which will be kept by the two escrow authorities who these escrow authorities will be is still to be decided by the attorney general but it was stressed to me that they will not be nsa or law enforcement agencies that they must be parties acceptable to the users of the system as unbiased when a law enforcement agency gets a court order they will present it to these two escrow authorities and receive k and k thereby allowing access to the unit key uk in addition to the system key each user will get to choose his or her own key and change it as often as desired call this key plain old k when a message is to be sent it will first be encrypted under k then k will be encrypted under the unit key uk and the serial number of the unit added to produce a three part message which will then be encrypted under the system key sk producing e e m k e k uk serial number sk when a court order obtains k and k and thence k the law enforcement agency will use sk to decrypt all information flowing on the suspected link aside it is my guess that they may do this constantly on all links with or without a court order since it is almost impossible to tell which links over which a message will flow this gives the agency access to e m k e k uk serial number in the above message they then check the serial number of the unit and see if it is on the watch list for which they have a court order if so they will decrypt e k uk to obtain k and then decrypt e m k to obtain m i am still in the process of assessing this scheme so please do not take the above as any kind of endorsement of the proposed scheme all i am trying to do is help all of us assess the scheme more knowledgably but i will say that the need for just one court order worries me i would feel more comfortable though not necessarily comfortable if two separate court orders were needed one per escrow authority while no explanation is needed the following story adds some color in researching some ideas that silvio micali and i have been kicking around i spoke with gerald gunther the constitutional law expert here at stanford and he related the following story when edward levi became pres ford s attorney general right after watergate he was visited by an fbi agent asking for the wiretap authorizations when levy asked for the details so he could review the cases as required by law the agent told him that his predecessors just turned over blank signed forms every time levi did not comply and changed the system but the lesson is clear no single person or authority should have the power to authorize wiretaps or worse yet divulging of personal keys sometimes he or she will be an edward levi and sometimes a john mitchell martin hellman date sun apr pdt from martin hellman hellman isl stanford edu to smb research att com subject re clipper chip it is fine to post my previous message to sci crypt if you also post this message with it in which i ask recipients to be sparse in their requesting further info from me or asking for comments on specific questions by this posting i apologize for any messages i am unable to respond to i already spend too much time answering too much e mail and am particularly overloaded this week with other responsibilities i note a probably correction sent to me by dorothy denning she met with the person from nsa that i talked with by phone so her understanding is likely to better than mine on this point where i said the transmitted info is e e m k e k uk serial number sk she says the message is not double encrypted the system key or family key as she was told it is called only encrypts the serial number or the serial number and the encrypted unit key this is not a major difference but i thought it should be mentioned and thank her for bringing it to my attention it makes more sense since it cuts down on encryption computation overhead
|
6,563 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow in article qnupd jpm news intercon com amanda intercon com amanda walker writes from amanda intercon com amanda walker jhesse netcom com john hesse writes oh great wonderful news nobody can listen in except the feds hey it s better than the status quo i am far less worried about the feds tapping my phone than high school scanner surfers who get their kicks out of eavesdropping on cellular and cordless phone calls i m a political dissident i m scared shitless of the feds listening in on my calls my opinions are the sort that would get me disappeared in a slightly less free society and who knows what sort of society we will be in in five or ten years i have friends who have had their phones tapped none of this is theoretical to me as for its better than the status quo well first of all you can get a cryptophone from companies like cylink today and they work well in addition a number of groups are now working on building software to turn any pc into a privacy enhanced phone right now and they are all working in overdrive mode and yes i d rather just see all crypto restrictions lifted but this is at least an incrememental improvement for certain applications there are no crypto restrictions yet you can use anything you want right now the point is to maintain that right perry metzger pmetzger shearson com laissez faire laissez passer le monde va de lui meme
|
6,564 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article qovj m ni umd edu louie sayshell umd edu louis a mamakos writes in article tcmayc m xv jex netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes but is it any worse than the current unsecure system it becomes much worse of course if the government then uses this clinton clipper to argue for restrictions on unapproved encryption this is the main concern of most of us i think the camel s nose in the tent etc excuse me this has already happened there s a couple of humps in the tent already ask the folks at qualcomm what became of the non trivial encryption scheme they proposed for use in their cdma digitial cellular phone standard there already are restrictions in place you have it slightly wrong they dumped the encryption system because they could not export it not because they could not produce it for u s use there are no legal restraints on citizen use of strong cryptography yet perry metzger pmetzger shearson com laissez faire laissez passer le monde va de lui meme
|
6,565 |
sci.crypt
|
are we being hysterical no in article qpg finn dns nmsu edu amolitor nmsu edu andrew molitor writes in article tcmayc m xv jex netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes but is it any worse than the current unsecure system it becomes much worse of course if the government then uses this clinton clipper to argue for restrictions on unapproved encryption this is the main concern of most of us i think the camel s nose in the tent etc not to pick on mr may in particular of course but isn t this kind of the domino theory as john gilmore has pointed out repeatedly if you produce the infrastructure that would permit a police state to function all that is required to suddenly find yourself living in one is a change of attitude on the part of the government our constitution was built by men who had to risk their lives to ensure freedom in our country they designed the system to make it difficult for tyranny to arise for instance one of the reasons the fourth amendment was put there was to make it harder for the government to try to make smuggling a crime think i jest john hancock made all his money smuggling rum which is after all a drug think about it the government has everyones keys in escrow and the fbi gets their pet wiretap without leaving the office scheme there is a coup which happens every day all around the world within hours everyone in the country who might oppose the tyrants is being monitored more closely than ever before possible without the tools being in place a tyranny cannot stand with tools like this in place a tyrannical dictatorship could actually be successfully imposed why give the government tools with which to enslave you maybe you can trust bill clinton but are you willing to tell me that you can trust every government that will ever arise in the u s hereafter i am not willing to make that leap of faith tim may whose sig block may get him busted in the new regime isn t this just a little melodramatic i m a political dissident as such i am acutely aware of what happens to political dissidents in most of the world in most of the world i could be killed for my beliefs call amnesty international some time to find out what happens to dissidents in most of the world all that seperates the u s from most of those places is a thin piece of parchment in the national archives thats being constantly more and more eroded by such farces as the war on drugs coups have happened in countries that have had stable democracies for over a hundred years governments throughout history have fallen no government has lasted for more than a few hundred years often they are replaced by dictatorships do you really believe so intensely that it could never ever ever happen here that you are willing to bet your own life and the lives of your children and other loved ones on it if we construct the tools with which tyranny could be enforced we make it orders of magnitude more likely that it could happen because if it happened with the tools already in place it could actually stick naive fools such as our leadership believe they can protect us where hundreds that have gone before have failed thriving democracies led by men far more skillfull than bill clinton have fallen to dictatorship rome had a thriving republic run by exquisitely skilled men before they became a tyranny i for one am unwilling to trust that it could never happen here only hubris would allow us to believe we are immune to what has happened elsewhere perry metzger pmetzger shearson com laissez faire laissez passer le monde va de lui meme
|
6,566 |
sci.crypt
|
re the source of that announcement in article tcmayc o mrs netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes i know that at least one person on that list says the first he heard of clipper was in the friday morning newspaper and another has already fired off a letter of protest to nist my point i suspect this list interesting as it is for various reasons does not represent the cabal that put this proposal together some of them yes others no i received mail from mitch kapor saying that he did not ask to be on the list and does not know why he was added i m sure the same applies to others on the list so i guess my initial theory was right that the clipper list was just someone s idea of a bad joke i guess i should be happy it wasn t a conspiracy marc marc horowitz n nzu marc mit edu
|
6,567 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article apr yuma acns colostate edu holland cs colostate edu douglas craig holland writes note that measures to protect yourself from tempest surveillance are still classified as far as i know i think this to be inaccurate one can buy tempest equipment commercially even macs david david sternlight great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our information errors and omissions excepted
|
6,568 |
sci.crypt
|
re clipper chip technical details short summary of what bellovin says hellman says the nsa says there is a global key g plus one key u c for each chip c the user can choose a new session key k p for each phone call p he makes chip c knows three keys g its own u c and the user s k p the government as a whole knows g and every u c apparently a message m is encrypted as e g e u c k p c e k p m that s it the system as described here can t possibly work what happens when someone plugs the above ciphertext into a receiving chip to get m the receiving chip needs k p to get k p the receiving chip needs u c the only information it can work with is c if u c can be computed from c then the system is cryptographically useless and the key escrow is bullshit otherwise how is a message decrypted dan
|
6,569 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more douglas craig holland holland cs colostate edu writes with e mail if they can t break your pgp encryption they ll just call up one of their tempest trucks and read the electromagnetic emmisions from your computer or terminal note that measures to protect yourself from tempest surveillance are still classified as far as i know are lcd displays vulnerable to tempest if the new regime comes to fruition make sure you protect your first amendment rights by asserting your second amendment rights i ll second that jason i stood up on my van i yelled excuse me sir ain t nothing wrong with this country that a few plastic explosives won t cure steve taylor i blew up the clinic real good steiner jupiter cse utoledo edu
|
6,570 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more al escom com al donaldson writes amolitor nmsu edu andrew molitor writes yes those evil guys in the fbi can probably with some effort abuse the system i got news for you if the evil guys in the fbi decide they want to persecute you they re gonna and if richard nixon had had this kind of toy he wouldn t have had to send people into the watergate this appears to be generic calling upon the name of the anti christ just for the hell of it let s destroy this remark let us imagine that the executive branch actually could extract keys from the escrow houses without anyone knowing or telling now what dick has bits of data what the hell s he gonna do with it trot around to the telco and say we d like an unauthorised decrypting tap uh huh break in to watergate and install his own tap so his people still do have to break in neat huh record some noise then get the executive branch phone decryption box huh they ve got one goodness wait til the washington post gets hold of this and decrypt the noise more likely stare at the key and say oh hell it s not worth all this bloody hassle truth is even granted lots of covert power on the part of the executive branch this system is more difficult to tap with than pots gear the fact that it is easier to tap than some hypothetical system neither you nor i am going to place on our phones is neither here nor there the only rational concerns i am seeing raised are a is the key really just chopped in half and not some xor arrangement that is has some egregious technical error been built in to the plan b is this is the first step toward strict regulation of strong encryption but that s not really the issue the real issue is whether this will be used to justify a ban against individuals use of private i e anything else encryption methods this is b of course i suspect not if the government actually wanted to make such regs they d just do it a few hundred people on usenet yelling about it wouldn t even slow the machine down besides who is this mysterious they who s going to take away all our rights the instant we let our guard down congress that gang of buffoons can t even balance their checkbooks the fbi but they don t make the laws the nsa ditto the white house bill clinton is probably still looking for the bathroom it s a big place after all andrew al
|
6,571 |
sci.crypt
|
re an open letter to mr clinton in article c oy z ily chinet chi il us schneier chinet chi il us bruce schneier writes in article strnlghtc m cv hx netcom com strnlght netcom com david sternlight writes here s a simple way to convert the clipper proposal to an unexceptionable one make it voluntary that is you get high quality secure nsa classified technology if you agree to escrow your key otherwise you are on your own as long as you are on your own means that you can use your own encryption i m sold bruce as am i if high quality secure nsa classified technology means handing my key over to whomever i ll take pgp any day right now they are billing it as voluntary i e bend over here it comes as soon as enough wiretap chip based units are out there how much easier do you think it will be to redefine on your own to mean write it yourself and don t even think about distributing it get honest no one is going to buy this trash if they know it s compromised already and less will buy it if the algorithm is not disclosed the nsa knows that making this stuff available to the public means handing it to whatever foreign powers are interested in the process since when has export control stopped anyone especially software wise ask yourself carefully if high quality secure nsa classified technology is something they are going to hand out not unless you can drive a nsa van through the holes uni dark uni acs bu edu public keys by finger and or request public key archives at pgp public keys pgp iastate edu df f b de b c c sovereignty is the sign of a brutal past cryptography is not a crime fight the big brother proposal
|
6,572 |
sci.crypt
|
who should be hearing my views on clipper being a browser of this group for some time and being very concerned about the clipper chip proposal i am hoping someone with more knowledge can help out who would be the most influential people to write to protesting the obvious next step hinted at by this proposal heads of what committees etc what are the major flaws in the plan from a cryptological standpoint shaun p hughes facts are stupid things sphughes sfsuvax sfsu edu ronald reagan republican national finger for pgp public key convention
|
6,573 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article apr ringer cs utsa edu whughes lonestar utsa edu william w hughes writes in article qpg finn dns nmsu edu amolitor nmsu edu andrew molitor writes in article tcmayc m xv jex netcom com tcmay netcom com timothy c may writes tim may whose sig block may get him busted in the new regime isn t this just a little melodramatic not at all two weeks ago i registered a concern about some programming that was being conducted by a student organisation here at the university of texas at san antonio as a result i was interrogated by the capus police who also attempted to create a positive identification file photo fingerprints etc i refused to permit this and filed a complaint with the university administration the vice president for business affairs the boss of the campus police stated that he had no interest in the legal constitutional implications of those actions in article johnson trwacs johnson trwacs fp trw com steve johnson writes a remark i heard the other day is beginning to take on increasingly frightening significance the comment was made that in other parts of the world the democrats note the big d would be known as socialists we might get further if we begin by accepting that the government really couldn t be bothered less about the political opinions of the right wing pro establishment types just about the only circumstances in which i could think that they would be interested in their political views would be to recruit them as spooks they can be guaranteed to give the government line when it counts in us history it has been the socialists such as myself who have been persecuted now before people start asserting that there is no mechanism by which the administration can get their new chip adopted without legal force lets try thinking in the first place the clipper chip must have existed for several years as a defense project therefore this is not a party matter at all george bush was in any case hardly adverse to tapping calls he was chief spook remember secondly the govt can quite easily apply pressure they simply ask their chums who they give huge defense contracts to motorola etc to be nice boys after all bill is giving them a nice little trade monopoly since the chips won t be avaliable to foreign firms thirdly the people who consider the democrats to be socialist are not the same as the ones who consider socialists to be communist people might know this if the us education system did not suffer from the mcarthyite and dewy version of political correctness the sort with tribunals and show trials ever seen ed meese pissed i have it was when he said that socialism and communism were the same thing and brought the house down with laughter it took several minutes before we realised that he was serious phill hallam baker phill hallam baker
|
6,574 |
sci.crypt
|
big brother clipper chip there are some issues which come to mind when one considers the law enforcement aspects of the use of the big brother clipper chip the drug dealers and terrorists aren t going to let themselves be caught by using this type of encryption in the new york times reported that government investigators broke up a narcotics ring that was operating highly sophisticated equipment capable of allowing the leaders of the ring to eavesdrop on the law enforcement agents who were trying to arrest them a mr deely an nsa official said there are a lot of medium sized countries that would have been proud to have the signals intelligence operation of this group for every john gotti there are probably many more people who have the sophistication to know what the risks of unsecure communications are the press given to the big brother chip will only increase their numbers even if there is some benefit to law enforcement through the use of big brother it must be weighed against the constitutional and civil liberties questions involved for example in some areas of the world torture is used as an investigative tool by the local law enforcement people i suspect it is an effective means of obtaining information and shortening many investigations it probably also helps keep the conviction rate high the fact that the torture tool is not used in this country even with a court order obtained by showing probable cause is because we have rightly balanced the questions of expediency and what is ethically and morally right i think that the same question of expediency versus morality should come into play when considering the use of big brother i vote for morality i am quite disturbed by what i interpret as a veiled threat to prohibit the use of all encryption if this big brother chip is not put into wide spread use after a quick reading of the white house press release i came away with that impression to most of the american public the word hacker has rightly or wrongly come to mean high tech adolescent vandal it has struck me that most of the people posting to sci crypt regarding this issue are intelligent thoughtful individuals who have genuine concerns about the privacy and constitutional issues surrounding big brother i hope that the use of big brother does not become mandatory and other encryption become illegal i would hate to see this become some kind of high tech volstead act the high speed digital communications revolution is coming at us with the speed of an sst the times they are a changing and just as ibm is learning that they can t do business the same way they have done it for the past years maybe nsa should evaluate another approach eff who have correctly questioned the cryptographic strength of big brother may need to send a stronger message out regarding the constitutional issues involved al gore may want to think this one through a little more and as for dorothy elizabeth robling denning en quoi cela vous concerne cheri
|
6,575 |
sci.crypt
|
clipper chip and key exchange methods i was wanting to ask the same question dan bernstein asked how does the clipper chip exchange keys if the public key is only or bits long does anyone know of any public key schemes that are secure with that key size diffie hellman or maybe el gamal with p set to a constant value presumably the real scheme is something like exchange verify public keys send encrypted randomly generated session key encrypt decrypt voice trafic with some sort of fast stream cipher can anyone elaborate on this or show me what i m missing here john kelsey c mizzou missouri edu
|
6,576 |
sci.crypt
|
re is there any security in the clipper zeev ccc amdahl com ze ev wurman writes but do we really believe that the various governments including ours won t have the full lists of all the keys ever manufactured yes but they ll be encrypted with cripple chip encryption the encryption algorithm so great it s top secret and so unbreakable they won t even let you look at it doesn t that make you feel secure robert w clark just say no to the rclark nyx cs du edu big brother chip
|
6,577 |
sci.crypt
|
clipper chip how would it work with all the talk about this clipper chip i have developed one question how does it work if you use this then how does it get decrypted on the other end does the other party receiving the phone call mail etc have to know some code to undo it do i use a different method for calling one party than i would for another if the other party can decrypt it doesn t that mean that someone else could also i assume that if everyone has a different key the only use would be storing secure data for later retrieval by the same key this seems like a fundamental question to me but i have very little experience with cryptosystems other than des if someone could give me an explanation as to how it would be used remember that i have had little experience with this sort of thing it would be very much appreciated justin york jyork iastate edu
|
6,578 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article apr yuma acns colostate edu holland cs colostate edu douglas craig holland writes with e mail if they can t break your pgp encryption they ll just call up one of their tempest trucks and read the electromagnetic emmisions from your computer or terminal note that measures to protect yourself from tempest surveillance are still classified as far as i know i don t know about classified but i do seem to remember that unless you re authorized by the govt it s illegal to tempest shield your equipment besides effective tempest shielding is much more difficult than you might think hi jim ra rogue cs neu edu rogue agent sod the nsa is now funding research not only in cryptography but in all areas of advanced mathematics if you d like a circular describing these new research opportunities just pick up your phone call your mother and ask for one
|
6,579 |
sci.crypt
|
fighting the clipper initiative here are some ideas for those of you who want to oppose the white house clipper chip crypto initiative i think this is going to be a tough measure to fight since the government has invested a lot of resources in developing this high profile initiative they are serious about it now it won t be as easy as it was defeating senate bill in possible actions to take in response mobilize your friends to to all the things on this list and more work the press talk with your local newspaper s science and technology reporter write to your favorite trade rags better yet write some articles yourself for your favorite magazines or newspapers explain why the clipper chip initiative is a bad idea remember to tailor it to your audience the general public may be slow to grasp why it s a bad idea since it seems so technical and arcane and innocent sounding try not to come across as a flaming libertarian paranoid extremist even if you are one lobby congress write letters and make phone calls to your member of congress in your own district as well as your two us senators many members of congress have aides that advise them of technology issues talk to those aides involve your local political parties the libertarian party would certainly be interested there are also libertarian wings of the democrat and republican parties the right to privacy has a surprisingly broad appeal spanning all parts of the political spectrum we have many natural allies the aclu the nra other activist groups that may someday find themselves facing a government that can suppress them much more efficiently if these trends play themselves out but you must articulate our arguments well if you want to draw in people who are not familiar with these issues contribute money to the electronic frontier foundation eff and computer professionals for social responsibility cpsr assuming these groups will fight this initiative they need money for legal expenses and lobbying mobilize opposition in industry companies that will presumably develop products that will incorporate the clipper chip should be lobbied against it from within and from without if you work for a telecommunications equipment vendor first enlist the aid of your coworkers and fellow engineers against this initiative and then present your company s management with a united front of engineering talent against this initiative write persuasive memos to your management with your name and your colleagues names on it hold meetings on it publicize deploy and entrench as much guerrilla techno monkeywrenching apparatus as you can that means pgp anonymous mail forwarding systems based on pgp pgp key servers etc the widespread availability of this kind of technology might also be used as an argument that it can t be effectively suppressed by government action i will also be working to develop new useful tools for these purposes be prepared to engage in an impending public policy debate on this topic we don t know yet how tough this fight will be so we may have to compromise to get most of what we want if we can t outright defeat it we may have to live with a modified version of this clipper chip plan in the end so we d better be prepared to analyze the government s plan and articulate how we want it modified philip zimmermann
|
6,580 |
sci.crypt
|
how can clipper stay classified maybe i don t know enough to know what i am asking but with millions of these things about how could the algorythm possibly stay secret couldn t some clever hackers just grind the thing down layer by layer and see how it worked brian mcbee mcbeeb atlantis cs orst edu finger me for pgp key
|
6,581 |
sci.crypt
|
why the clipper algorithm is secret the cryptographic protocol though is another matter i see no valid reasons for keeping it secret and as i hope i ve shown above there are a lot of ways to do things that aren t quite as bad it just occurred to me why the algorithm is secret if it were published one could then build physically identical clone versions of the chip that would interoperate with official clipper chips but the cloner wouldn t provide the keys to the escrow houses hmmn or is there a technical hack that i ve missed e g how about if the chips were made unprogrammed but serialized and then shipped to the two escrow houses who programmed in their halves of the keys but in a way that requires that secret keys known only to the escrow houses be installed as well without which clone versions wouldn t interoperate this is getting awfully complicated but that s crypto for you john r levine iecc pob cambridge ma johnl iecc cambridge ma us ima spdcc world iecc johnl time is money steal some today
|
6,582 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article c pgfu ia dscomsa desy de hallam zeus desy de writes views would be to recruit them as spooks they can be guaranteed to give the government line when it counts in us history it has been the socialists such as myself who have been persecuted and in russia capitalists were persecuted for trading goods on the black market and in the us capitalist minded types are imprisoned and killed for things such as selling drugs guns pornography and other victimless activities it doesn t matter whether you are socialist or capitalist power and control are central to government since citizens can t be trusted to run their own affairs the government must watch them for their own good of course i mean with strong cryptography citizens might gasp start to hide things from the irs sell drugs guns pornography and that cannot be allowed trials ever seen ed meese pissed i have it was when he said that socialism and communism were the same thing and brought the house down with laughter it took several minutes before we realised that he was serious not very surprising to anyone who believes in hands off government if you believe that your private life both social and financial are none of anyone else s business the difference between socialism and communism is like the difference between murder by lethal injection or by chainsaw the more centralized the economy is the more potential abuses for accumulation of information on individuals if you think credit companies are bad well i m sure a democratic socialist society would vote for absolute privacy of all citizens not
|
6,583 |
sci.crypt
|
re clipper chip technical details thus said djb silverton berkeley edu d j bernstein short summary of what bellovin says hellman says the nsa says there is a global key g plus one key u c for each chip c the user can choose a new session key k p for each phone call p he makes chip c knows three keys g its own u c and the user s k p the government as a whole knows g and every u c apparently a message m is encrypted as e g e u c k p c e k p m that s it the system as described here can t possibly work what happens when someone plugs the above ciphertext into a receiving chip to get m the receiving chip needs k p to get k p the receiving chip needs u c the only information it can work with is c if u c can be computed from c then the system is cryptographically useless and the key escrow is bullshit otherwise how is a message decrypted given the description of the algorithm given the only plausible explantion i can find is that k p must be agreed to out of bandwidth in advance by the two parties i e it s a standard shared symmetric key marc vanheyningen mvanheyn cs indiana edu mime ripem accepted security through diversion n theory which states that the public availability of good computer games is vital to maintaining system safety contrast security through obscurity
|
6,584 |
sci.crypt
|
what the clipper nay sayers sound like to me the following is available in some ftp archive somewhere i insert my comments liberally throughout this demonic memo of big brotherdom white house announcement on screw thread standards this is to announce that the american national standards institute or whatever it is has been given the authority to define standard dimensions for screw threads look this is clearly the first step toward outlawing our own screw thread specifications if this madness isn t fought tooth and nail every step of the way it ll be a crime to use screw threads other than those our fearless leaders so graciously define for us the purpose of this is to permit industry to draw upon a standard pool of specifications and designations to ensure interoperability of various threaded objects across vendors rubbish i say ansi standard screw threads will have subtle weaknesses allowing their agents to disassemble our automobiles more easily causing our mufflers to fall off at inoppurtune moments questions and answers on the ansi screw thread standards q will the screw threads defined by ansi be as good as other screw thread designs available elsewhere a yes hah trust us q will i be able to use my own screw threads if i desire a of course but this will make your threaded objects unlikely to interoperate correctly with others within the industry see see this is the first step it is clear we must band together write your congressman use pretty good screw threads not this devil inspired ansi trash protect your constitutional right to use whatever screw thread you desire guerilla screw thread activism must become the order of the day boycott gm and build your own car using screws from stz screw thread associates screw you bill clinton you and your totalitarianist thugs amolitor nmsu edu finger for pgst personal screw thread pitch or screw threads see the screw thread servers must be freed
|
6,585 |
sci.crypt
|
re white house wiretap chip disinformation sheet the attorney general will procure and utilize encryption devices to the extent needed to preserve the government s ability to conduct lawful electronic surveillance and to fulfill the need for secure law enforcement communications further the attorney general shall utilize funds from the department of justice asset forfeiture super surplus fund to effect this purchase this is the one part that really scares me without the keys it can likely be determined if a person is using the state approved encryption method and if not then that persons life is forfet and the profits go to making more busts and more profit power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely human nature has not changed very much in only a few hundred years curt howland howland nsipo nasa gov nsi operations center nasa ames
|
6,586 |
sci.crypt
|
re what the clipper nay sayers sound like to me a bunch of well meaning maybe cynnical text about screw thread sizes the rights of people to have their own standards and the non right of the gov to regulate screw threads well as funny as your little comment may seem it has very little to do with your personal privacy as a citizen and about the governemnt being able to look at everything you have ever typed into a computer at one point or another this clipper chip stuff is the seeds for nightmares to make the nightmare on elmstreet cheese on celluloid movies look like episodes of mr roger s neighborhood if the gov establishes a cryptography standard that has to be used by everyone and everyone s personal key is divided into two segments and stored at two separate albeit easy to find places and that key is only bits to begin with we are screwed pardon the allusion to the affore mentioned article the gov i believe as do many others probably already have the cracking chips for this clipper chip made hell they probably based the encoder on the chip that cracks it that way it s easier to break the code but since it is a classified algorythm no one knows that they can crack it so easily i for one and quite scared of this kind of thing and plan to support organizations and even disorganizations who are fighting against this clipper chip in any way that i can i do not want the government to be able to have access even with a search warrant to my keys and i don t want those keys to be only bits long to begin with nate sammons o o i hate quotations this message brought you by tell me what you know nate sammons and the number ralph waldo emerson ns longs lance colostate edu o o
|
6,587 |
sci.crypt
|
crypto conference i need to know the following information about the upcoming crypto conference the address to submit articles and the number of copies needed thanks jonathan demarrais jed pollux usc edu jay jed pollux usc edu university of southern california what a depressingly stupid machine marvin
|
6,588 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more strnlght netcom com david sternlight writes what follows is my opinion it is not asserted to be the truth so no flames please it comes out of a background of years as a senior corporate staff executive in two fortune companies i d be happy to use a crypto system supplied by the nsa for business if they told me it was more secure than des and in particular resistant to attempts by japanese french and other competitive companies and governments to break i d be happy to do so even with escrowed keys provided i was happy about the bona fides of the escrow agencies the federal reserve would certainly satisfy me as would something set up by one of the big accounting firms i d trust the nsa or the president if they stated there were no trap doors i d be even happier if a committee of independent experts examined the thing under seal of secrecy and reported back that it was secure i d trust something from the nsa long before i d trust something from some swiss or anybody japanese a lot of us out here in the hinderland will trust the japanese before we ll trust the nsa the president or those stupid fortune companies you re so proud of this may seem surprising to some here but i suggest most corporations would feel the same way most many some pick one corporations have an attitude that the nsa is part of our government and we support our government as one very famous ceo put it to me one day just some perspective from another point of view and since the japanese corps aren t part of our government governors they may be more trusted out htere than you are people are getting tired of this be patriotic do whatever we say without question and pay more taxes attitude that comes from america s political party or should that be caste david sternlight great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our information errors and omissions excepted phil fraering seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff pgf srl cacs usl edu like how the ancient mayans had televison repo man
|
6,589 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more holland cs colostate edu douglas craig holland writes with e mail if they can t break your pgp encryption they ll just call up one of their tempest trucks and read the electromagnetic emmisions from your computer or terminal note that measures to protect yourself from tempest surveillance are still classified as far as i know i don t think they are classified i could independently invent about half a dozen right off the top of my head if i had studied advanced e m a little better i could probably come up with a very good system if the new regime comes to fruition make sure you protect your first amendment rights by asserting your second amendment rights doug holland phil fraering seems like every day we find out all sorts of stuff pgf srl cacs usl edu like how the ancient mayans had televison repo man
|
6,590 |
sci.crypt
|
some thoughts on clipper proposal i envision incorporation of new standart into various communication systems thus making it prevalent on the market therefore cheap the way to do that may be detaching crypto chip from communication equipment it seems logical to provide clipper chip to the end user not as a part of phone fax modem like but in the form of smart card compatible with various telecomm products banks will encourage extensive use of new cards to make transactions by phone natural step will be to cross reference this card to the person in the government databases or else this new version of wiretap proposal make no sence at all one wish to eavesdrop spell on the particular person not on the particular modem or phone as a side note i disagree with one poster who said he won t care about ability of the government to eavesdrop since they can do that now anyway clipper will take away electronic survelliance from citizens making it monopoly of the government may be we can find examples when interceptions made by unauthorised people uncovered crimes of state officials for pgp public key finger mkagalen lynx dac northeastern edu
|
6,591 |
sci.crypt
|
underground encryption was re text of white house announcement in article qmugcinnpu gap caltech edu hal cco caltech edu hal finney writes it looks like the worst nightmares raised by dorothy denning s proposals are coming true if the government continues on this course i imagine that we will see strong cryptography made illegal encryption programs for disk files and email as well as software to allow for encrypted voice communications will be distributed only through the underground people will have to learn how to hide the fact that they are protecting their privacy some thoughts has any work been done on encapsulating encrypted data inside non encrypted data files many file formats can be written with gaps in them to hide other data new file formats could be designed to have alternate data hidden by dispersing it amongst the legitimate data the hidden data would only show up with the right key s and a file with hidden data would be indistinguishable from one without so only the correct key s would reveal the presence of an illegal document if i devise a custom file compression algorithm and only i and a friend have the uncompressor and otherwise the file appears to be total gigerish do i have the right to transmit the file will we have to escrow all our data file formats are gangs required to escrow their hand signals colors and catch phrases i think that it s important to evaluate the content of electronic speach by replacing the media with pen and paper or verbal speach and then re ask the question
|
6,592 |
sci.crypt
|
unix crypt for dos i ve recently moved from unix to a dos box and have a number of files that i used crypt to protect does anyone know of a dos version of crypt i ve found one but it insists on six letter keys and i used some shorter ones thanks for your help doug
|
6,593 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article qpg finn dns nmsu edu amolitor nmsu edu andrew molitor writes not to pick on mr may in particular of course but isn t this kind of the domino theory when one little country falls its neighbor will surely follow and before you know it we re all mining salt in siberia for not turning in our captain crunch secret decoder rings but for all the wrongness of our attempt to correct it vietnam et al the domino theory wasn t disproved at all
|
6,594 |
sci.crypt
|
re clipper some new thoughts the cryptographic algorythm must be kept secret or private individuals could make clipperclones with which they could transmit messages which the feds would not have ready access to this is clearly unacceptable i hope somebody starts doing this soon after the first ones are released
|
6,595 |
sci.crypt
|
re once tapped your code is no good any more in article apr clarinet com brad clarinet com brad templeton writes once it hits land you can record it if you have telco access the telco isn t supposed to give that without a warrant that s the rule today but even so the evidence would not be admissible i think unless the judge so ordered i think that even interception of the crypttext without a warrant would be illegal cops can t record today s plain cellular calls and then ask a judge hey can we have permission to listen to those tapes can they how long do you think it will be before it becomes legal for the police to record encrypted conversations it s not violating your privacy because we can t read the encryption without a warrant with the usual good faith exception if they accidentally record a non encrypted conversation besides it s covered by the drug exception to the fourth amendment pray for peace bill bill stewart wcs anchor att com at t bell labs m holmdel nj no i m from new jersey i only work in cyberspace white house commect line fax
|
6,596 |
sci.crypt
|
re secret algorithm re clipper chip and crypto key escrow in article apr yuma acns colostate edu holland cs colostate edu douglas craig holland writes let me ask you this would you trust richard nixon with your crypto keys i wouldn t i take it you mean president nixon not private citizen nixon sure nothing i m doing would be of the slightest interest to president nixon david david sternlight great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our information errors and omissions excepted
|
6,597 |
sci.crypt
|
re white house wiretap chip disinformation sheet in article wcs apr rainier att com wcs anchor ho att com bill stewart writes the attorney general will procure and utilize encryption devices to the extent needed to preserve the government s ability to conduct lawful electronic surveillance and to fulfill the need for secure law enforcement communications further the attorney general shall utilize funds from the department of justice asset forfeiture super surplus fund to effect this purchase this is a very curious thing to say stu iiis nsa designed secure telephones cleared for classified traffic are already readily available to law enforcement agencies word has it they re standard in every fbi office for example something like several hundred thousand of these phones exist in all they are clearly the us government standard so why does the doj need to buy new phones that unlike stu iiis will not be certified for classified traffic and in all likelihood will not be compatible with existing stu iiis unless of course they re gearing up for large scale decryption of civilian clipper users and they need compatible hardware phil
|
6,598 |
sci.crypt
|
re wh proposal from police point of view dwight tuinstra posts a very interesting message in which he comments on the effects of the clipper chip on state and local police actually reading between the lines it could be a very good thing for civil liberties in one respect since it will at least prevent cowboy cops and cowboy state and local agancies from reading your traffic if they tap it illegally there has been extensive discussion in the eff forum for example about inadmissible taps being used to develop information that could then lead to admissible evidence this might put a stop to such things which must from time to time be simple fishing expeditions david david sternlight great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of our information errors and omissions excepted
|
6,599 |
sci.crypt
|
re clipper chip technical details djb silverton berkeley edu d j bernstein writes summary elided the system as described here can t possibly work what happens when someone plugs the above ciphertext into a receiving chip to get m the receiving chip needs k p to get k p the receiving chip needs u c the only information it can work with is c if u c can be computed from c then the system is cryptographically useless and the key escrow is bullshit otherwise how is a message decrypted the description of the chip s operation evidently leaves out some of the key management aspects either the k p is the secret key corresponding to a public key which is broadcast at message initiation or it is the result of a diffie hellman key exchange or something similar either way there must be some protocols beyond those described here it isn t clear whether they are implemented in the clipper wiretap chip or must be provided by other system components hal finney
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.