waashk/20ng huggingface dataset:
In article <strnlghtC5t4o3.K5p@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes: >Actually the govrnment is telling you that if you want to use their >"product" the manufacturer (actually better yet, some "trusted" pair >of escrow agencies) has to have the key. > >Most of us already are in this situation--our car makers have keys to our >cars (or can get them quickly from the VIN  number), and I have no doubt >that if presented with a court order, they'd surrender copies to the >government.  >Chances are that many locksmiths have the code numbers for house locks >they've installed, and in an emergency can cut keys; thus they'd also >provide such keys to the government pursuant to a court order.      Of course, nothing prevents you from buying a new lock with cash and installing it yourself. Even modifying the core to match some arbitrary key is not difficult to do at home. I once knew someone who had fixed his locks in this way - his house, office and cars all took the same key (which he took GOOD care of :-)  >The state has no difficulty gaining access to your safe deposit box if they >have a court order.  >Bad analogy.      Very bad (yours, that is). Have you ever had a safety deposit box? They work on a two-key system. The bank clerk has one, and you have the other (they are different keys). The bank does NOT keep a copy of your key. If you lose it, they have to drill out the lock, and replace the door. This is a time consuming and expensive process (which they will be happy to charge to your account :-).       This process is exactly analogous to having a private key which is NOT in a escrow system, and the state having to crack your cipher to get the data.       Please do not use false analogies.
In article <C5nn9I.D5q@news.claremont.edu> ebrandt@jarthur.claremont.edu (Eli Brandt) writes: >In article <1993Apr16.181040.9381@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 1987 or 1988.
>If the crooks use an innocent person's clipper phone on the tapped line >there's no problem. The Feds don't care whose phone instrument is used, just >that the conversation is by the suspect on the tapped line. They get the >serial number, get the keys, and they are in business. > >No clipper chip to person association is ever needed.  Yeah, but who wants to start a pool on the first person arrested mistakenly and has their life turned upside-down because some law enforcement agency *does* make a chip::person association?  I wonder if there are any plans to keep these records (e.g. encode the serial number into the UPC scanned at K-Mart along with the credit card info, voila.)  At least your phone number tends to only locate to your house or whatever (i.e. to be coming from your telephone number the person likely is in your house etc.), plus or minus some shenanigans of course.  But I'd hate to think of these guys getting the clipper id, recording the conversation, then doing a quick cross-lookup and your name comes up as owner of that id (mistakenly, maybe you sold the phone at a garage sale or the phone was stolen from your car or whatever.) They might only know who one side of the conversation is, for example.  Anyone who thinks the govt is forbidden by law to cross-correlate such databases loses two points. First, law enforcement agencies can of course do this. Second, they're only forbidden from BUDGETING any money for it. The IRS, for example, does do this anyhow. They just don't spend any money on it so it's (technically) legal I guess.  Instead they probably trade little favors with companies like mastercard (if you're the IRS I'll bet you have a *lot* of opportunities to trade favors with major corps for their databases.)  I know, an IRS guy read an amazing list off to me (from his screen, I could hear him typing to pull up each screen) once on the phone during a dispute I had with them (to intimidate me, actually, not much of a dispute, I didn't particularly disagree, but for some reason this fellow wanted to play tough guy with me, I hope he's better now.)  Amazing stuff he had at his finger tips. Be afraid.  --          -Barry Shein
butzerd@maumee.eng.ohio-state.edu (Dane C. Butzer) writes:  > Finally, can anyone even concieve of a time/place where 128 bit keys aren't > sufficient?    It depends on the algorithm used. 128-bit secret keys for RSA are definitively not secure enough.  Regards, Vesselin
Even more interesting: the SMTP server at csrc.ncsl.nist.gov no longer 	recognizes the 'expn' and 'vrfy' commands...  	   telnet csrc.ncsl.nist.gov smtp 	   Trying 129.6.54.11... 	   Connected to csrc.ncsl.nist.gov. 	   Escape character is '^]'. 	   220 first.org sendmail 4.1/NIST ready at Tue, 20 Apr 93 17:01:34 EDT 	   expn clipper 	   500 Command unrecognized  	Seems like sombody didn't like your snooping around, Marc.  Or mine.  Or the dozen or so other people who probably had the same idea :-)  So does this rush to shut it down imply that some of the names on that list *are* heavy-duty spooks? :-)))
johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) writes: > >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 > It just occurred to me why the algorithm is secret.  If it were > published, one could then build physically identical clone versions  I recall seeing a post some time ago saying that if the details of an encryption scheme couldn't be revealed, then the encryption scheme is worthless.  I believe the statement was in response to somebody saying that they had some new snazzy scheme, but the algorithm was a secret.  Does this algorithm depend on the fact that the scheme is secret or is it for the stated reasons above?
I'm looking for a copy of Friedman's Riverbank Publication No. 16 "Methods for the Solution of Running-Key Ciphers."  Agean Park Press tells me that their publication C-23 "The Riverbank Publications, Volume 1" is out of print.  Can anyone snail-mail me a photocopy of No. 16?  If someone could it would be much appreciated.  Regards,
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.
pat@rwing.UUCP (Pat Myrto) writes:  >If the Clinton Clipper is so very good, [...]  Please note that Bill Clinton probably has little if anything to do with the design, implementation or reasoning behind this chip or behind any "moves" being made using this chip as a pawn.  Remember, when you elect a president of the united states, it's not the case that all the Republicans, etc. in the NSA and FBI and CIA immediately pack their bags and get replaced by a team of fresh young Democrats.  Most of the government -- say, 96% -- is appointed or hired rather than elected.  Since this Clipper device has been in production for over six months, it probably has little or no  foundation in the currently elected Democratic Executive body.  >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.  Could be.  However, the sky hasn't fallen yet, Chicken Little.
I came. I lurked. I read the FAQ.  Now having purchased the recommended books, and having taken to heart the advice that one knows nothing about crypto without having done a stint as a cryptanalyst, I would like to correspond with people interested in cryptology.  I am working on implementing the cryptanalyst's workbench example in Booch's OOD with Applications. I hope to start sending ciphers back and forth so each of us can practice cracking them.  I would like to start with simple Ceaser's ciphers and progress roughly according to David Kahn's book. Of course I would be interested in general discussions and math also.  I hope to have some foriegn correspondants so that we can test the response time of the "men in the suits" I've been hearing so much about. Unfortunately as a product of the American education system I only know English.  Looking forward to any and all responses.  James
In article <1993Apr21.192615.3465@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>, denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:  |> The chips are programmed by Mykotronx, Inc., which calls them the |> "MYK-78."  The silicon is supplied by VLSI Technology Inc.  They are |> implemented in 1 micron technology and will initially sell for about |> $30 each in quantities of 10,000 or more.  The price should drop as the |> technology is shrunk to .8 micron.  Hmmmmmm.  $30 seems a bit expensive.  How big is the chip?  What kind of packages will be used?  3 volt or 5 volt technology?  How much current will it draw?  I think there are many practical questions that haven't been answered, especially since this chip already exists!  |> All Clipper Chips are programmed inside a SCIF (Secure Compartmented |> Information Facility), which is essentially a vault.  The SCIF contains |> a laptop computer and equipment to program the chips.  About 300 chips |> are programmed during a single session.  The SCIF is located at |> Mykotronx. |>  |> At the beginning of a session, a trusted agent from each of the two key |> escrow agencies enters the vault.  Agent 1 enters a secret, random |> 80-bit value S1 into the laptop and agent 2 enters a secret, random |> 80-bit value S2. These random values serve as seeds to generate unit |> keys for a sequence of serial numbers.  Thus, the unit keys are a |> function of 160 secret, random bits, where each agent knows only 80.  OK, I've got a big problem with all of this.  How in the world do you expect to sell these chips for even $30 after all the overhead involved in this programming procedure?  2-4 people, a laptop, only 300 chips at  a time:  give me a break.  And how long does all of this take?  Even if it is a minute per chip, it will take the greater part of a day to  turn out 300 of these things.  How long do you suppose it will take to program those 10,000 chips mentioned above?  This is highly impractical!  |> To see how the chip is used, imagine that it is embedded in the AT&T |> telephone security device (as it will be).  Suppose I call someone and |> we both have such a device.  After pushing a button to start a secure |> conversation, my security device will negotiate an 80-bit session key K |> with the device at the other end.    So where can I find info on this AT&T device?  What kind of vocoder does it use?  Does it require ISDN phone lines?  If not, is it full duplex?  How does it sound?  What kind of synchronization scheme is used?  Will all other little black boxes have to conform to AT&Ts choices of protocol, etc.?  Will anybody else be allowed to build boxes that conform to these specifications?
In article <1r4g7l$fdl@sunb.ocs.mq.edu.au> ifarqhar@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au (Ian Farquhar) writes: >In article <19930419.155204.305@almaden.ibm.com> ameline@vnet.IBM.COM (Ian Ameline) writes: >>  I also believe that someone will reverse engineer the clipper chip, >>and knowlege of the algorithm will likely be fairly widespread. Any back- >>doors or weaknesses would further discredit the scheme, and help grow >>the market demand for a secure alternative. >  There are companies (one in Canada, as I recall) which specialize in analyzing chips to understand process technology, design rules, ... to understand the probable yield of the assembly line making them, and therefore the probable current cost and possible future cost curves, given design shrinks, statistical quality control -> better yields, etc.  Taiwanese, Japanese and especially Korean semiconductor manufacturers have all (korea continues) reverse-engineered foreign chips and produced the chip.  Taiwan and Japan have signed intellectual property treaties, and now at least extract the gate/transitor level design before laying the chip out again.  The koreans still use mask-level copying, I believe.  At least, they are under a lot of pressure to pass laws to meet international intellectual property standards.  All this despite lots of attempts to hide the designs.  There are lots of techniques to do so in both hardware and software design.  For a complex chip, there will be real intellectual effort extracting the gate design from the transistor design, and the algorithm from the gate design.  But it won't take two smart guys even 6 months, working 40 hour weeks.  Koreans work 60 or more 8)  Lew
In article <01050810.vkcsbl@mbeckman.mbeckman.com> mbeckman@mbeckman.com writes:   >  As an economist, I'm sure you can see the flaws in this logic. If the (naive) >market is flooded with proprietary, but weak, encryption, then truly strong  >encryption will be unable to compete.  This is true for the mass market, but not for those who need strong crypto and are willing to pay the price. After all, one can buy strong crypto today if one is willing to spend enough.  Thus the concern is not economic.  The issue most worth worrying about is that after the system takes hold, the government will outlaw other systems, and something voluntary will become the only system available. That is a political, not an economic issue.  As a separate matter, you may be making an implied advocacy for cheap secure crypto for everyone. It's true that the Clipper chip would probably prevent that except via Clipper, but "cheap, secure crypto for everyone" is a political discussion, not an economic one, and the whole point of Clipper is  to resolve that political (policy) tension between securing legitimate communications and tapping the crooks.
ashall@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Andrew S Hall) writes:  >I am postive someone will correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Fifth >also cover not being forced to do actions that are self-incriminating? [...]  [From Mike Godwin <mnemonic@eff.org>, posted with permission - Carl]  Sadly, it does not. Suspects can be compelled to give handwriting and voice exemplars, and to take blood and DNA tests.  > e.g. The police couldn't demand that you silently take them to where the > body is buried or where the money is hidden.  No, but they could compell you to produce the key to a safe where, as it happens, evidence that will convict you is stored.   The crypto-key disclosure issue hasn't come up yet, but current law suggests that it's a loser for the defendant--he'll be compelled to turn over the key.  The test for compelled self-incrimination is whether the material to  be disclosed *in itself* tends to inculpate the discloser. In the example I gave above, the safe key itself has no testimonial value--ergo, it can be disclosed under compulsion (e.g., subpoena duces tecum).  Moreover, the government can always immunize the disclosure of a crypto key--compelling you to disclose the key at the price of not using the fact of your disclosure as evidence in the case against you. Of course, they can use whatever they discover as a result of this disclosure against you.   --Mike
strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes:   >Some of the messages here seem to reflect the view that the government is >listening in on everything and one will have to hide one's clipper messages >somehow if non-escrowed crypto goes away.  >A little perspective might be in order.  >The number of court ordered wire taps is pretty low. Law enforcement has to >present pretty good evidence to get even that limited number of >authorizations.  >Thus the overwhelming majority of conversations are neither tapped nor >recorded by the government, and for that to happen they have to: >a) Have a pretty good reason, with evidence; >b) Use this sparingly on highest priority "pretty good reasons."  >Though the system may be imperfect, it is a long way from the horror stories >some here seem to believe or anticipate.  >--  >David Sternlight         Great care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of >                         our information, errors and omissions excepted.    	Again we have the trust in government problem here. Members of  Mr. Sternlight's generation trust the government to a degree which members of my generation find ridiculous. I would suggest that Mr. Sternlight read about the COINTELPRO program, or about J. Edgar Hoover, or about the wire-tapping of Martin Luther King, then, after he has digested this information he can ponder the fact that while the government does not tap every conversation that they have a record of tapping many conversations that they have no right to, even under their own laws. Given the long history of members of the US government ignoring the laws that apply to them, it is no wonder that so many people in here sound so paranoid, and given the fact that it is often difficult or impossible to punish these individuals once they are discovered, it is no wonder that so many people in here have so little faith in the escrow proposal for Clipper.
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.
In article <matt-160493203627@wardibm2.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 RC2 and RC4, it would make more sense to consider the case of RC Cola?
clipper@csrc.ncsl.nist.gov (Clipper Chip Announcement) writes:  >The President has approved a directive on "Public Encryption >Management."  The directive provides for the following:  [...]  >When >exported abroad, it can be used to thwart foreign intelligence >activities critical to our national interests.  [...]  >The Attorney General of the United States, or her representative, >shall request manufacturers of communications hardware which >incorporates encryption to install the U.S. government-developed >key-escrow microcircuits in their products.  Quite interesting.  How does the US administration intend to persuade non - US governments to let the NSA eavesdrop on them?  Or should U.S. companies install these chips in communication systems sold abroad without the customer's knowedge or consent, or not at all?
In <C61rt8.6BC@chinet.chi.il.us> schneier@chinet.chi.il.us (Bruce Schneier) writes:  >In article <Apr23.215306.83257@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> holland@CS.ColoState.EDU (douglas craig holland) writes: >> >>OK, I heard a lot of talk about the NSA's infamous control over encryption >>export through the ITAR.  Here's a question.  Say I develop this great new >>encryption system, and I want to sell my software worldwide.  The thought >>police then come in and say "This algorithm is a threat to national security. >>You will not be permitted to export it."  At this point, what kind of trouble >>could I get into if I ignored the ITAR and sold my program to international >>customers anyway? >> >>Doug Holland  >You would be arrested as an international arms trafficker.  There are several things in ITAR which have never been tested in court.  The concensus appears to be:  You could be arrested as an international arms trafficker.  (You could, regardless of the state of the law, but there are some paragraphs which suggest you would be violating the law.)  If it goes to court, the ITARs could be thrown out is incompatible with the First amendment; or the court could rule that "software" is "technical data" not subject to the ITARs; or the court could rule that the phrase "publicly available" as defined in the ITARs would apply, making it only subject to requiring a general export license; or, you could be prosecuted successfully for arms trafficing or espionage.  General concensus among lawyers who have read the ITARs, is that one of the first two would occur.