- cypherpunks-legacy@lists.ogf.org

CPSR Statement on White House Plan
by Dave Banisar 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

CPSR Crypto Statement ----------------------------------------------- April 16, 1993 Washington, DC COMPUTER PROFESSIONALS CALL FOR PUBLIC DEBATE ON NEW GOVERNMENT ENCRYPTION INITIATIVE Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) today called for the public disclosure of technical data underlying the government's newly-announced "Public Encryption Management" initiative. The new cryptography scheme was announced today by the White House and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), which will implement the technical specifications of the plan. A NIST spokesman acknowledged that the National Security Agency (NSA), the super- secret military intelligence agency, had actually developed the encryption technology around which the new initiative is built. According to NIST, the technical specifications and the Presidential directive establishing the plan are classified. To open the initiative to public review and debate, CPSR today filed a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with key agencies, including NSA, NIST, the National Security Council and the FBI for information relating to the encryption plan. The CPSR requests are in keeping with the spirit of the Computer Security Act, which Congress passed in 1987 in order to open the development of non-military computer security standards to public scrutiny and to limit NSA's role in the creation of such standards. CPSR previously has questioned the role of NSA in developing the so-called "digital signature standard" (DSS), a communications authentication technology that NIST proposed for government-wide use in 1991. After CPSR sued NIST in a FOIA lawsuit last year, the civilian agency disclosed for the first time that NSA had, in fact, developed that security standard. NSA is due to file papers in federal court next week justifying the classification of records concerning its creation of the DSS. David Sobel, CPSR Legal Counsel, called the administration's apparent commitment to the privacy of electronic communications, as reflected in today's official statement, "a step in the right direction." But he questioned the propriety of NSA's role in the process and the apparent secrecy that has thus far shielded the development process from public scrutiny. "At a time when we are moving towards the development of a new information infrastructure, it is vital that standards designed to protect personal privacy be established openly and with full public participation. It is not appropriate for NSA -- an agency with a long tradition of secrecy and opposition to effective civilian cryptography -- to play a leading role in the development process." CPSR is a national public-interest alliance of computer industry professionals dedicated to examining the impact of technology on society. CPSR has 21 chapters in the U.S. and maintains offices in Palo Alto, California, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Washington, DC. For additional information on CPSR, call (415) 322-3778 or e-mail <cpsr(a)csli.stanford.edu>. ======================================

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Big Brother: Unlawful Taking
by Harry Shapiro 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

I think the gov. involvement in the Clipper is an unlawful taking against anyone else who has made an investment in selling encryption. RSA, for example. These people should sue the government to talking this multi-billion dollar business away from them. /harry -- Harry Shapiro habs(a)panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991

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Big Brother: Public Escrow is Needed
by Harry Shapiro 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

All the talk about Escrowing of keys by sepeerate agencies is all well and good. However, to be really secure, the computer system they reside on, and all access to it, must be in some way very public and very very limited. The public needs to know that at least one of the key-pairs, can in no we be retrieved except through some very public process. That law enforcement or some cracker doesn't have some back order into teh Escrowed Key Server... As as somebody else pointed out, once my key is know ALL my communication is now "OPEN." Not just what they got a warrent for. Thus, the actual opening of my "mail/voice/etc" should be done in more, again very public place, so they my key-pair (and the cost of replacing it if the warrent is unfounded) is kept secure and never in the hands of any person or agency. In other words, I don't want my key-pair sitting in a non-secured database, to re-used latter (with or without a warrent.) If the key-pair is turned over to someone/agency and I am not found quilty or indicted, etc. I need to be told so I can change my keys, or even have the government pay me for this cost as they have un lawfully taken the value of my Clipper based device away from me. /harry -- Harry Shapiro habs(a)panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991

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Big Brother: Easy to Break
by Harry Shapiro 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

I recall having a conversation at the Boston ExI meeting, talking about super computers and how fast they could break small keys (like 80 bits). I think it was carlf, and I don't recall the exact estimate given, it I think it was on the order of several hours to several days for a fast connection machine class super computer to break such a key by brute force. The NSA certainly has plenty of fast machines, and I assume they will be able to break any clipper based encryption routinely. Certainly as 64-bit, high speed multiprocessors come on line in the next few years it will be easier and easier for even us plain folks to break such keys (although I sure not a simple task). With NSA having the algorithim and access to perhaps at least half the key or perhaps some little bit of "known text" that clippper puts into each message to make it easier to do a known text attack on someone's clipper encoded message, we can assume that the escrowed keys are at best a ruse... -- Harry Shapiro habs(a)panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991

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Big Brother: Post Filtering the Clipper
by Harry Shapiro 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

Some posters have speculated that it might be possible to get a phone, swap it with someone else, and then the feds would not be able to get the correct key-pair. An other poster assumed that each clipper chip would send out some sort of Clipper-ID in plain-text before and/or during and/or after a session. Which causes me to further speculate that it may be possible to filter out these plain text messages. (They are probally built in to the exchange of keys ritual and so can't be filtered out without preventing the Clipper to do it thing...). If they can be filter, filtering them may either be an out right criminal act or be considered probally cause for a warrent to determine why you are filtering them out, etc. -- Harry Shapiro habs(a)panix.com List Administrator of the Extropy Institute Mailing List Private Communication for the Extropian Community since 1991

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Re: Clinton Administration crypto proposal/policy
by greg＠ideath.goldenbear.com 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

The Clinton Administration's recent proposal, and responses to same from the net community, have left several questions in my mind: o Are these devices intended to be used as isolated pairs - such that two phones/modems/whatever will only speak with each other .. or will any such device speak with any other such device? If any device can communicate with any other device, how is the key(s) for en/decryption for any particular session determined? .. and what prevents an eavesdropper who is present from the beginning of the session from using that data to decrypt the conversation? o According to the EFF response to the proposal, there aren't really two keys, but two 40-bit halves of one 80-bit key. Doesn't this imply that were a "bad guy" able to get just one of those halves, the computing power required to do a brute-force attack is considerably lessened? (I'm asking a question here, not making a statement. I read about this because I think it's interesting but it's not really my field.) o Presumably, these devices will insert into the data stream some sort of "sender ID" which will allow eavesdroppers to know which key(s) they need a warrant for - doesn't this seem to make it pretty easy to keep track of data along the lines of "Station 12345 sent 500 packets to station 31415, who sent 7734 packets in return" .. which would seem to present privacy questions separate from (but dwarfed by :) the security of the encryption itself? Also, cypherpunks readers may find these two snippets from two articles re the proposal interesting (and chilling): --- _NY Times_, 4/16/93, p. A1 (National edition) "The Clinton Administration plans a new system of encoding electronic communications that is intended to preserve the Government's ability ^^^^^^^ to eavesdrop for law enforcement and national security reasons .." --- Eugene, Oregon's _Register-Guard_, 4/16/93, p. 3A "The Clinton Administration is about to announce a plan to preserve privacy in electronic communications, including telephone calls and electronic mail, while also insuring [sic] the government's right ^^^^^ to eavesdrop for law enforcement and national security reasons." --- Emphasis, of course, added by me. The Register-Guard article is taken from the NY Times' article (presumably from a wire service) and consists of paragraphs 2,3,4,5,6,8, and 9 of the NY Times article, with changes to the first paragraph noted above. Grr. -- Greg Broiles greg(a)goldenbear.com Golden Bear Consulting +1 503 465 0325 Box 12005 Eugene OR 97440 BBS: +1 503 687 7764

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Data Encryption Algorithm
by x62727g2＠usma8.USMA.EDU 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

Fellow Cypherpunks, I am a cadet at West Point and have been involved in developing a new encryption algorithm which I believe is stronger than DES. I realize that many of you enjoy the challenge of breaking encryption schemes and I wondered if you might be interested in trying to break mine. I would be very interested in any analysis that you could give of my system. Please contact me if you are interested. Anthony J. Gatlin |-------------------------------------| CDT PVT, G-2 |PGP Public Key available on request. | |-------------------------------------|

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(fwd) Re: Once tapped, your code is no good any more.
by tcmay＠netcom.com 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

Cypherpunks, I agree with Arthur Abraham that we ought to first make our arguments in public and not preach to the converted here on this list. Unless the ideas presented are Cypherpunks-related. In this spirit, here's something I wrote about the consequences of key escrow. Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.security,comp.org.eff.talk,comp.security.misc,comp.org.acm,comp.org.ieee From: tcmay(a)netcom.com (Timothy C. May) Subject: Re: Once tapped, your code is no good any more. Date: Sat, 17 Apr 1993 04:53:55 GMT Brad Templeton (brad(a)clarinet.com) wrote: : 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. : : 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. : : : 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. 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. As the EFF noted, this raises further issues about the fruits of one bust leading to incrimination in other areas. 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.) And it may also become much worse if the ostensible security is increased, thus allowing greater access to "central office" records by the government (the conversations being encrypted, who will object to letting the government have access to them, perhaps even automatically archiving large fractions...). This was one of the main objections to the S.266 proposal, that it would force telecom suppliers to provide easy access for the government. One the government has had access to months or years of your encrypted conversations, now all it takes is one misstep, one violation that gets them the paperwork needed to decrypt *all* of them! Do we want anyone to have this kind of power? -Tim May, whose sig block may get him busted in the New Regime -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^756839 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.

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Big Bubba's Wiretapping Directive
by wcs＠anchor.ho.att.com 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

While I don't share Sandy Sandfort's wild optimism, at least steganography becomes a bit easier - the default assumption is about encrypted material becomes "Oh, it's just encrypted with the Tapper Chip, we can break it later" rather than "Oh, boy, it's encrypted, we can confiscate his computer!", and if it gets taken to court, and the wiretap approved by the Rubber Stamp Agency and then isn't able to be decrypted, the average person can say "I don't understand how the Secret Government Wiretapping Chip works, so I can't tell you what's wrong here!" On the more technical side, what precisely does the Mykotoxin chip *do*? Does it generate random keys for DES/etc., saving a copy for later? Or does it actually *do* the encryption with some classified algorithm? If it's the former, the user could presumably replace it with a pin-compatible non-wiretapping random number generator, unless there's some requirement that export-approved systems have soldered-in chips, and a foreign-made version might be compatible with US phones while not being tappable. On the other hand, if the MicroToker chip actually *does* encryption, whether secret-key or RSA or other public-key, or some other essential part of the encryption process, then you *have* to use it to be compatible. Assuming the US approves it for widespread use in phones, etc., it provides an incentive for everybody in the world to use it, especially if the Feds agree to share keys with their fellow governments who can wiretap their own citizens, and gives a boost to the balance of trade by being one product that you've got to buy from the US. Some questions that Clinton's Q&A blatantly stepped around are "When the Two Agencies approve the wiretap, *what* conversations become tappable? Everything they've recorded? The last N conversations? Future conversations only?" "Once one government group has YOUR phone wiretap key from the Two Agencies, can they pass it around to the IRS, FBI, local cops, and everyone else? "What if they make a mistake on a tap - do you have to buy a new phone now that they've spread YOUR phone wiretap key around?" We *do* have to try to control the language here - the Clintonistas are referring to the subjects of a hypothetical wiretap as "the drug smugglers" but we ought to redirect it to "YOUR phone's wiretap key" so people remember we're talking about them and their privacy. It might also be good for us to give examples like "The IRS suspects you're cheating on your income tax so they want to wiretap your phone calls to your accountant, so they do XXXXX." because it feels like something that might happen to THEM. Sigh. Bill Stewart

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Q&A DataBase
by ORNTS188＠ksuvxb.kent.edu 17 Apr '93

17 Apr '93

Hello All, does anyone know much about the this program? I would like to be able to pick the passwords out of the database file. In this program (Q&A) the database can be set up so that users have limeted access to different areas of the files. I just got the code and doc files for WP hack, and they were great. I am still going thur the code. Well thanks Red :)

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