From: silver@brewich.hou.tx.us (Silverflame)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Freedom of Religion, speech, et. al.
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 92 02:28:54 CDT
Organization: The Brewer's Witch BBS, +1 713 272 7350, Brewich.Hou.TX.US

In post #3760, 25 Aug 1992 19:03:08 GMT, Grendel 
(mimir@milton.u.washington.edu (Al Billings)) writes:

>In article <1992Aug25.171221.16943@csus.edu> altheimm@nextnet.csus.edu 
(Murray A
ltheim) writes:
>>
>>I hate to tell you Al, but I've read a number of articles, including 
one
>>interviewing a former NSA employee, and it seems that the NSA has 
little
>problem getting around most of these attempts at encryption.  In fact, I
>>kinda get the feeling that the reason they are fighting so hard now is 
that
>>someone has proposed a new encryption standard that they don't have a 
key
>>for (YET).  Just my personal observation -- in this area there are no 
facts.

> Well, I hate to tell you, but to the knowledge of everyone I've talked
>to, professional and not, they still haven't found a way to easily crack
>RSA encrytption. Besides, even if they did, it would take quite a bit of
>computer time. I receive a lot of e-mail. If it was all encrypted, they
>would have WEEKS of time to crack it all.

>Wassail,
>Grendel

No, I don't like to have to tell you this, Grendel, but (1) professionals 
of the caliber of those working for NSA aren't gonna be talking - even 
after retirement (and that includes those in the Army, Navy, Air Force 
(and possibly even the Coast Guard?) crypto organizations), unless they 
want to spend their remaining years staring at the walls of Levenworth 
from the inside...without benefit of trial by jury; (2) NSA (aka "No Such 
Agency") _does_ have a couple of computers dedicated to code breaking - 
does Cray ring any bells? Rumor has it that NSA has at least one Super 
computer which makes Cray look like an old Z80 (well, maybe I do 
exagerate a wee bit...but not much), and since "The Evil Empire" is in 
the process of disintergration, I dare say that they've got a lot more 
time to spend on domestic intercepts; and most importantly, (3) it may be 
a common misconception among civilians (gentle people without the 
onus/karma of a mispent background as a "spook" - desk work for the most 
part - that is) that the sheer volume of message traffic would overload 
the capacity of a code breaking system. _NOT!_ In truth, the converse is 
true. While crypto is not one of my specialties, and while I am not 
familiar with the current generation of encryption algorythms, I do know 
that, in general, the more traffic, the more the computers have to work 
on _and_ the more chance they have of solving for the general form of the 
algorythm and thus, the more probability of solving for the specific case 
of a targeted individual's keys.
Think of it in the same manner as trying to decypher a "dead" language - 
if you have only a few examples of the language to work with, you don't 
have the chance of a snowball in hell of decyphering it...but with bushel 
baskets of the stuff, your chances increase greatly - see any good book 
on the history of archeology. Do you think that cracking a encryption 
algorythm is any tougher than trying to learn to read & write Assyrian or 
(pick your favorite dead language)? For example - if I was trying to 
crack your cypher, I'd (of course) plug your names in - both Grendel & Al 
Billings, common Germanic & Norse salutations, other terms from the Norse 
religion, the names of the Gods & Goddesses, Rune names, etc., etc., and 
see if the computer could fit them into both the encryption algorythm & 
the context of your messages, and so on.
Besides - assuming for the sake of argument that Big Brother did want to 
target you, the first thing that would be done would be to tap your phone 
lines, etc. (one assumes that Al Billings is your real name, Ma Bell has 
the phone number of The Sacred Grove BBS billed to you, and that you do 
work at/for Univ of Washington), and if necessary, park one of their 
mobile signal research sites (aka an 18 wheeler loaded down with state of 
the art signal accquisition gear) and simply read the keystrokes on your 
computer terminal, match it to the encrypted message intercepted, and 
Oopskadaisy! Well, at least they had that capability about 15 or so years 
ago - these days, I'm sure that they are much more capable. 
Believe me, Grendel - unless you believe that Big Brother Beowulf has the 
technological capability (and the mental attitude) to come in some night 
and figuratively rip your arm off (and I ain't gonna speculate what they 
might do literally, except to say that the only difference between the 
CIA/NSA and the KGB is the respective ideologies each espouses...IMHO (ho 
ho!).

And, while I'd truly like to give you my credentials, I'm afraid that 
you'll just have to take what I say for granted. I'm a nice guy these 
days and don't get in the way of the govnermunt.

 - Sometimes even Paranoids have enemies - 

Silverflame
"Non, je ne regrette rien"
          - Edith Piam
(Remember - You didn't hear it here; it was two other guys posting in my 
name; and I don't know what you're talking about!)


------------------
silver@brewich.hou.tx.us (Silverflame)
(Alternate) silver%brewich@lobster.hou.tx.us
Origin: The Brewer's Witch BBS -- Houston, TX -- +1 713 272 7350
     "Silence is the voice of complicity" - Vote Early, Vote Often!
Newsgroups: alt.pagan