NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/sci/crypt/4984

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-18 | 7.2 KB

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Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.privacy
Subject: White Paper on SCIPH version 1
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 18 Nov 92 19:00:55 GMT
Article-I.D.: nsrvan.1992Nov18.110055.56
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Organization: National Systems & Research, Vancouver WA
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             White Paper on Strong Cryptography in Public Use

 GROUND RULES.

 1) the white paper shall start with the ground rules
 2) a version code shall be used to identify competing versions of the white
    paper
 3) each version of the white paper shall be indicated in the subject line in
    the following format  'White Paper on SCIPH version n' Where n indicates the
    specific version.
 4) the creation of a new version will occur when major changes to the content
    of the white paper are proposed or at any time the ground rules change.
 5) No Discussion or debate of the white paper(s) shall occur under the white
    paper subject line (see rune 3)
 6) DISCUSSION and debate of proposed changes to a specific version of the
    white paper shall be noted in the subject line in the following format
    'Discussion on SCIPH WP version n'
 7) All persons are open to participate in the formulation of these white papers

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

             White Paper on Strong Cryptography in Public Use


   I.    Freely accessible practically secure cryptography (FAPSC) is an
         area in which the interests of private corporations and the
         interests (some would say rights) of private individuals to be
         secure in their persons and papers converge.  (They, ahem, don't
         always.)  As one of the recent contributors to the discussion on
         sci.crypt noted (I can't remember who, sorry!), it was supremely
         ironic that in the same Congressional testimony in which he
         lamented the explosive growth in recent years of industrial
         espionage, FBI Director William Sessions went on record as
         opposing FAPSC.  Making FAPSC illegal for the general populace
         will severely impact the security of internal corporate
         communications.  (Individual corporations are, I think, unlikely
         to win exemptions to such legislation unless they do contract
         work with the government, and then only on those specific
         contracts.)  Such a general ukase on FAPSC would thus hurt
         American business in a competitive world market.  This kind of
         argument is already being made by many corporations, and loudly.

   II.   From my educated layman's view of the intelligence-gathering
         process, two critical problems faced by analysts are (1)
         identifying the needles of valuable information in the haystack
         of more-or-less irrelevant data, and (2) correctly interpreting
         that information for the end-user.  The presence of FAPSC would
         not affect the second problem at all, as it is internal to the
         relationship of the intelligence-gatherer and the end-user. It
         _would_ affect the first problem, in certain ways.  It would of
         course reduce the size of the haystack, since most of the bits
         flowing into the intercept horns and linetaps would be
         encrypted.  Some informational `needles' would doubtless be
         obscured as well, and it is this prospect which exercises those
         who oppose FAPSC.  But consider that the kind of
         information-gathering facility which would be most impacted by
         FAPSC is the one about which almost everybody in this debate has
         the most misgivings: brute-force keyword searches on very-broad-
         band comm trunks.  Here the analogy with paper mail is most apt
         and should be played up for all it's worth: no one (or almost no
         one) would agree that the government ought to be in the business
         of steaming open and reading every letter passing through the
         U.S. Postal Service in the hopes of catching someone plotting to
         sell drugs or distribute kiddie porn, reprehensible as we find
         such activities to be.  (Wartime mail censorhip is, of course,
         the sole exception to this rule; but we haven't been formally at
         war in a _very_ long time, and we have shown no inclination to
         accept it or other related wartime expediencies even at the
         height of the Korean, Vietnam, Drug, and Persian Gulf wars.)  If
         by some other means (e.g. HUMINT) an intelligence-gathering
         agency discovers several parties communicating for possibly
         illegal purposes, it may obtain a court order by due process and
         proceed to eavesdrop.  That the data stream that it intercepts
         will be encrypted may not turn out to be a big problem, for
         reasons given below.  So, taken all in all, when one counts the
         (small) possible losses in information from ubiquitous FAPSC
         against the enormous benefits to business and private citizens
         from having it in place, it is clear that the balance of utility
         is on the side of the latter option.  (Most folks love
         cost-benefit analyses.)

    III. I propose that -- and this is, admiitedly, a stretch --
         ubiquitous FAPSC would tend to _improve_ the quality of
         intelligence gathered from telecomm.  Suppose, for the sake of
         argument, that Agency N gets information that individuals A and
         B are involved in what appears to be a conspiracy to, say, sell
         illicitly acquired industrial secrets to company C. Further
         assume that A and B are not professionals, i.e., trained spies;
         assume rather that they use common carriers for their
         communications and a trusted FAPSC package such as RIPEM or PGP.
         Such persons are likely, given the current understanding of
         FAPSC in the general populace, to be rather too credulous and
         trusting of their security system.  This makes them easy
         pickings for Agency N.  A quick trip in a Tempest van or a
         black-bag job to obtain the secret keys of one or both parties,
         and a wiretap, and Agency N can listen to their correspondence
         until at least the next keychange, and maybe beyond.  It can
         even spoof one or both parties and insert disinformation into
         the communications stream between A and B, and have that
         information acted on in complete trust of its authenticity.
         This is the key point: a shallow understanding of current crypto
         security (especially asymmetric cryptosystem) would lead the
         likes of A and B to be more easily monitored and duped.  Shallow
         understanding is about all that most nonprofessionals would ever
         exhibit.  As for the professionals, of course, special means
         will, and have always been, required to catch them; and the
         presence of ubiquitous FAPSC will not make that task any more
         onerous than it already is.