waashk/20ng huggingface dataset:
"The security of the system should depend only on the secrecy of the keys and not on the secrecy of the algorithms" -- Dorothy Denning
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.
In article <C614BJ.BK6@agora.rain.com> jhart@agora.rain.com (Jim Hart) writes: >"The security of the system should depend only on the secrecy of >the keys and not on the secrecy of the algorithms" -- Dorothy Denning > >jhart@agora.rain.com   You're reading far too much into this (aside from the obvious fact that you shouldn't hold anybody to what they wrote in a 10 year old book in a rapidly changing field like this.)   Quite simply she says that the security should not DEPEND on the secrecy of the algorithm.  A secret algorithm can still be secure, after all, we just don't know it.  Only our level of trust is affected, not the security of the system.  The algorithm *could* be RSA for all we know, which we believe to be secure.  They have a much better reason to classify the algorithm than to protect its security.  They want to protect its market share.  If they publish the algorithm, then shortly manufacturers would make chips that implement the algorithm and standard but do not use a key stored in escrow.  And of course, everybody would buy them.   The whole push of this chip is that by establishing a standard that you can only use if you follow their rules, they get us to follow their rules without enacting new laws that we would fight tooth and nail.  Quite simply, with Clipper established, it would be much harder for another encryption maker to define a new standard, to make phones that can't talk to the leading phone companies.   The result is tappable cryptography without laws forbidding other kinds, for 99% of the populace.   To get untappable crypto, you would have to build a special phone that runs on top of this system, and everybody you talk to would have to have an indentical one.  That's the chicken and egg of crypto.  The government is using its very special ability to solve chicken and egg problems of new technologies to control this one in a way they like.   It's almost admirably clever.  When the EFF started, I posed the question here "What are the police going to do when they wake up and discover they can't wiretap?" and nobody here had an answer (or even thought it was much of a question)  Then came the backdoor and Digital Telephony bills, which we fought.  Now we have their real answer, the cleverest of all.
: There are chips which perform the voice compression/expansion.  They can't : be expensive, because they exist in many phones connected to PBXs or on the : PBX line cards, as well as in a lot of equipment which compresses : voice-grade circuits to save the cost of long-distance, leased T1s or : satellite circuits.  : I can't remember the generic term for these chips.  My impression is that : this was a big deal 10 years ago, but circuits have gotten so cheap that : it isn't done much now.  Codecs.  They have to get about 6:1 compression on 8 bit samples to squeeze them down v32bis.  I played around with the lossless 'shorten' program last night, but it only managed 2.5:1.  I've got some specimen CELP code but it's not obvious that it runs in real time; I think it's just proof-of- concept code, and I have some mucking about with file formats to do before I can put my own sample through it.  Looks like the current option is to use a voice-mail modem with built-in DSP chip to do this in hardware.  That means two modems for a system, putting the cost at $600 upwards.  Ouch.  Maybe soon we'll be able to do it in software on high-powered games consoles - isn't the 3DO an Acorn RISC machine inside?  That cpu runs like shit off a shovel... and will be nicely mass-market too.
In article <strnlghtC5z0KA.B9u@netcom.com> (sci.crypt), strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes: > You should read the history. It was Hoover who stopped Nixon's COINTELPRO > dead in its tracks because he said it was unconstitutional. They tried to > get around him every way they could. >   Unfortunately, Hoover thought himself above the constitution, whatever he considered the limits others should obey. He ruthlessly invaded the privacy of many private and public citizens.     -mel
In article <strnlghtC5wCMo.Fx5@netcom.com> strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes: > In article <C5uvn4.MF7@austin.ibm.com> arussell@austin.ibm.com (AG Russell) > writes: > >At the company I worked for previously, I received a file that was > >des encryped and the person that had sent it, went on vaction. > >Rather than wait two weeks I set up a straight frontal attack with > >one key at a time.  It only took two(2) days to crack the file.  > Taking this at face value (though it seems quite dissonant with much else > that has been published here about brute force DES cracking, unless Russell > was lucky with respect to the key), I'd be very interested in whether the > program Russell used is available? In whether he used a cleartext > recognition algorithm in the program or whether he had to examine each > decryption by hand? In whether he used a known plaintext attack?   This has to be a dictionary attack.  No other attack makes sense.   This means that whoever encrypted the file just typed some password which was a single dictionary word, and then Russell tried all the words in the dictionary.  This isn't too implausible, especially if he was smart and clipped the first plaintext block off the ciphertext (if the first block doesn't decrypt then obviously the others won't either).  Assuming one attempt a second, it takes seven hours to try all the words in /usr/dict/words.   Not real tough.  If you want DES to be secure, you have to use RANDOM KEYS.  You can't just type your wife's name and think "aha they'll never guess that one!"    --  Daniel F. Boyd -- boyd@cs.buffalo.edu
Brad Yearwood posts a long response to the issue of registering a phone-clipper relationship.  It doesn't wash.  Recall that law enforcement gets a court order to tap a suspect's phone calls. They do what they do now--figure out which lines to tap. They then record the stuff. If it's Clipper, they read the law enforcement block, extract the serial number, and get the keys using the court order.  No new difficulties (such as using someone else's phone instrument or phone line) are introduced that wouldn't have existed absent clipper. If the crooks were going to use a pay phone (say), they could have done so without clipper. If the government figures out they're so doing, they listen in, and if it's a clipper conversation they get the serial number and then the keys.  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.  David
In article <allen.735873202@well.sf.ca.us> allen@well.sf.ca.us (Allen Barrett Ethridge) writes: >In <1993Apr26.063532.10120@eff.org> mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes: > >>In article <C614BJ.BK6@agora.rain.com> jhart@agora.rain.com (Jim Hart) writes: >>>"The security of the system should depend only on the secrecy of >>>the keys and not on the secrecy of the algorithms" -- Dorothy Denning > >>Cite source, please. > >"Cryptography and Data Security", page 8, perhaps.  Thanks. Got that from two other sources as well. The full quote is as follows:  From Dorothy Denning, CRYPTOGRAPHY AND DATA SECURITY, Addison-Wesley 1982,1983, page 8:  "Cryptosystems must satisfy three general requirements:  "1. The enciphering and deciphering transformations must be efficient for all keys.  "2. The system must be easy to use.  "3. The security of the system should depend only on the secrecy of the keys and not on the secrecy of algorithms E [enciphering] or D [deciphering]."    --Mike
In article <tcmayC5M2xv.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.  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?  >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 99.5% of the USA use this system.  They don't even have to care about the cautious .5% 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.   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.
In article <betel.734997645@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.
For that matter, it shouldn't be that difficult to design a black box that gives off EMR similar to a monitor with gibberish on the screen....
In article <tcmayC5M2xv.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                            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In article <he1pb02@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com>, vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) writes: > In article <strnlghtC5toC6.KIu@netcom.com>, strnlght@netcom.com (David Sternlight) writes: >>              Even the Department of Agriculture has successfully kept crop >> forecasts from leaking prematurely. >  > Sheesh!  Remember the big scandal a year or two (or 3?) ago about > exactly such leaks?  My choice for the escow house would be the Smithsonian, and someplace on the west coast.  My biggest concern isn't that the escrow house could be compromised (it will be), but the fact it has been compromised will be kept secret.    The keys could be kept under glass, with 24-hour C-SPAN coverage.  If you thought your key had been stolen just turn on the cable, and wait until the roving camera reachs the musuem case with your key.  Or if you think the C-SPAN satellite has been compromised, take a tour of the Smithsonian yourself, and view the seal on your key.
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?  --
zrepachol@cc.curtin.edu.au (Paul Repacholi) writes:  >In article <1993Apr16.055100.1@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.
In article <1rcboi$j4a@access.digex.net> steve-b@access.digex.com (Steve Brinich) writes:  [...] >  FEDS: We need the keys to Joe Blow's phone. > >  ESCROW AGENT: Joe Blow?  You have a warrant to tap his line? > >  FEDS: Well, no, but we have a warrant to tap Carlos "Slime-Devil" Gonzales' >     line, and our tap shows that Mr. Gonzales is using Mr. Blow's phone. > >  ESCROW AGENT: Well, OK....  No no no no no no no.  It will go like this:  FEDS: We need the key to phone 334RE67D99.  ESCROW: You have a warrant to tap the line phone 334RE67D99 is on?  FEDS: Yes.  ESCROW: Fine, here is our key.  What happens is, Feds tap a line; find Clipper is being used; extract serial number; get key; decipher convo.  The serial number is never registered to a specific owner, it is _sent_ as part of the conversation.  If I give you my Clipper phone, you do not need to re-register it (mainly because it was never 'registered' to me in the first place).  There are a lot of things that bother me about Clipper, but this is not one of them.  Let's get our facts straight and not waste effort demolishing straw men.  	RA  rogue@cs.neu.edu (Rogue Agent/SoD!)
What is the reason for the push on clipper?  Two days after the lead story here in the Mercury Times (murky news) there was another article on industrial espionage by the french.  Someone had said what can it hurt to allow the government to have continued access to our communications, they already have it.  The problem is that, yes the do have access, and probably more than we realize.  The government wants exclusive access to communications intercept here in the united states, cutting out other access detrimental to the national security (tm).  I also doubt that a certain3 letter agency, that originated the encryption algorithm and the chip designs needs to have anything to do with the  escrow system to continue their intercept effort.
In article <1993Apr24.233742.26839@lehman.com> pmetzger@snark.shearson.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes: >whughes@lonestar.utsa.edu (William W. Hughes) writes: >>Hell, just set up a spark jammer, or some other _very_ electrically-noisy >>device. > >As I've noted, you can likely get around that with a directional >sensor. Phased array systems could completely defeat this scheme.  True, but the basic idea behind any communications security system is not to absolutely deny access, but to make access more expensive (in time, money, manpower) than it is worth.
>>	0005895485@MCIMAIL.COM  (White House) > >Is this "White House e-mail address" really working yet? Someone >posted such an address on CompuServe a few months ago, but apparently >the White House wasn't really set up to recive hundreds (thousands?)  	This is a real address. My understanding of the current process that mail takes is it gets downloaded on floppy disk and is processed by retiree volunteers, who match the message against message profiles and check the message count. (I.e.: "yeah, that's a for gays in the military. what's this clipper stuff? must be against gays in the military...")  	The higher-volume white-house email stuff is in the works, I know for a fact, but won't be online for probably another month or two at the soonest. My understanding is that the link speed will increase (direct internet instead of Compu$erve to floppy) but the message processing will remain the same.  >Unless the people at the White House print and distribute this mail >every day, you may have better luck printing out a letter (on paper, >that flat white stuff all over my desk) and Snail-Mailing it to the >White House. I imagine writing to your local representative and >senator wouldn't hurt either. Heck, why not write to Al Gore while >you're at it?  	The white house email does get read. I agree that printing it and sending Cc: to everyone you can think of is probably better because it is more visible, but the message processing (fitting messages against a template) is the same in either case.
Someone in Canada asked me to send him some public domain DES file encryption code I have.  Is it legal for me to send it?  Thanx. -- Eschew Obfuscation  Rob deFriesse                    Mail:  rj@ri.cadre.com Cadre Technologies Inc.          Phone:  (401) 351-5950 222 Richmond St.                 Fax:    (401) 351-7380 Providence, RI  02903
In <4fplPDH0BwwbEDweNJ@transarc.com> Lyle_Seaman@transarc.com writes:  >Look, we (collectively) have the power to throw the bums out, but we >don't use it.  We clearly don't need to go burning things down, but we >clearly do need to throw at least some of the bums out. >Unfortunately, the bums have learned to target only small groups of >people at a single time, so the masses won't react and throw them out. >Eventually, the masses will react, unless the bums cease their >relentless encroachment on liberty and despoilment of the economy. >The sooner it happens, the less the damages will be.  I don't want to >live in a war zone, either -- I want to see the bums thrown out before >they do some *real* damage.  Before they do some real damage??  You haven't been paying attention, it seems.  The so-called War on Drugs has already done major damage to the US Constitution.
In article <1993Apr20.155924.29995@news.clarkson.edu>, tuinstra@signal.ece.clarkson.edu.soe (Dwight Tuinstra) writes: > First, note that the "experts" will only look at "details", and of just  > the algorithm: >  >     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. >  > Why not the chip design?  Well, here's the possiblity:  in addition to > encryption, the chip pre-processes voice signals to make them easier > to analyze/transcribe electronically.  The chip, once widespread, might > effectively be part of a massively parallel computer for "voice- > grepping" the US phone network (or the criminal & wrong-thinking patrons > thereof).  First of all, the chip doesn't do that.  It runs at 16 megabits/second, which is far beyond what you need for voice.  It's obviously intended for data as well, and on high-speed lines at that.  Second -- what advantage is there to doing the processing in the phone? I don't care how fancy that chip is; it's not as fancy as the roomful of analyzers at Fort Meade running the program they'll have 5 years from now.  They can't update every Clipper chip that's out there.
In <Apr21.233200.70723@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> ns111310@LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Nathaniel Sammons) writes:  >In article <1993Apr21.163929.21149@eff.org> A. Charles Gross <acg@eff.org> writes: >>Certainly, with our way-cool Internet powers of >>organization, we can act in the same way, if such action is appropriate. >> >>As long as we are kept informed of events, anyone on this bboard can make >>a call to action.  Hopefully, we're a strong enough community to act on >>those calls.  I realize this is a little optomistic, and I'm glad EFF is >>working in the loop on these issues, but don't underestimate the >>potential of the net for political action. >> >>Adam >>* I speak for myself  >I second the motion.  >All in favor?  Sounds great.  But how would something like this be done?  Start up a news group for discussions of things like lobbying tecniques and how to get non-computer geeks as pissed-off as we are?