December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

NIST GAK export meeting, short version
by Pat Farrell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

I just got back from the NIST GAK export meeting. This is a short writeup of a summary. I'll post a longer version later this evening or early tomorrow morning. The meeting was hosted by Ed Roback of NIST, who quickly introduced Mike Nelson of the White House. Mike is clearly a political guy. His handout says: "We believe that our proposal for exportable 64-bit key escrow encryption meets these goals [the goals of VP Gore's letter to Rep Cantwell, July 20, 1994]." He said that the criteria describe a solution, but not the only solution. He said it does not preclude other implementations in the future. He anticipates that the State Department will issue guidance based upon these criteria in "early 1996," and that between now and then, any product that meets the criteria will be elegible for expidited approval. Of course, the existing (slow as molasass) process will continue. I asked the first questions from the floor. The two questions were: (1) Is this meeting concerned solely with export of software, or does it deal with controling domestic use of strong cryptography? and (2) since the 64-bit limit was severly criticized at the Sept meeting, why is it still needed if there is also escrow? His answer was that there is "no intention to control domestic encryption" and on the 64-bit issue, that the government is "not certain it will work." he says they "want to see it implemented and want to see how it works" because 64-bit encryption is very strong. If the escrow doesn't work, they don't want a lot of softare to be in widespread use. He said that they have studied the encryption that is supposed to be widely available on the Internet. He said that viewed by crypto experts, not much is very good. He mentioned "two incidents" where Netscape had weak implimentations. He feels that companies will not trust software over the 'net. that they "want the US Government to say that 'this is good enough'." Clint Brooks, of NSA, then went over the revised criteria. He claimed that they were surprized at the industry concern over "one product" for worldwide markets. There were lots of questions. He eventually admitted that because of the "one product" concern, export regulations will effect domestic products. [all the more reason for Netscape to keep building ten or whatever it is.] Brooks admitted that it is impossible to prevent multiple encryption. Cypherpunks would do that by using PGP and then sending it using GAK. He said "as a person, you can set up a secure communication method, and nothing can be done about it." His concern is not that smart people can have stronger crypto, but that strong crypto will be easy and widely used. He said that the 64-bit key limit is not meant to restrict RSA keys to 64-bits, but rather to restrict the session keys that are encrypted using RSA. Unspoken was the assumption that the 2000 bit RSA secret key would have to be escrowed. There were some interesting (and bad IMHO) implications of interoperability. I'll cover them more in the long version. Basically, they admitted that the interoperability restrictions made it stupid to have an export version, you should have a strong domestic version, and an international version developed offshore for sale to the rest of the world. They admitted that there can be no controls over export of data, so once interoperating software is available both domestically and from offshore sources, there is no value in the export controlled, crippled version. My favorite policeman, Geoff Greiveldinger, then described the characteristics of an acceptable key escrow agent. There was a long list of criteria, all unseen before the meeting. The general reaction of the audience was that these were "yet another set of criteria that must be met." Geoff claimed that they were simply trying to address the questions raised at the earlier meeting about who is an acceptable escrow agent. One point that caused a lot of concern was that at least one employee of the escrow agent has to have a SECRET clearence. Industry, with a few exceptions, soundly said that this is a dumb idea, that there is no market, that the criteria are too hard, etc. Except Padgett Petersen, representing Lockheed-Martin. He said that LM thought that the criteria were just peachy. The usual civil liberties folks also soundly trashed it. There was a representative from Netscape. He said that they, as a company think this is a terrible idea. They oppose it now, and will be issuing a company policy soon. I didn't catch his name, and couldn't find him to get the obviously carefully prepared text. If someone from Netscape, are you listening Jeff W? could get me the text, I'll add it to my writeup. ****************** What I think it means: I believe that the government deeply wants to restrict domestic use of strong encryption, but they have no legal justification for doing so. They can't expect that they will get it if they go to Congress. So they are attempting an end-arround using the export criteria, which they _do control_. They hope that the pain of having multiple versions will be so high that no vendor will bother, and all we'll have is crippled software. The usual civil liberties lobby folks (CDT, EPIC, etc.) want to hold their own, industry sponsored meetings to develop workable systems. I think that the real key is for everyone, worldwide to insist on both strong crypto and interoperability. The Germans are already writing fine software and making fast hardware. Microsoft and Netscape can easily afford to do some of their development offshore. If the products sell and are deployed, it won't matter what the govies want. Pat ps. there were a number of other cypherpunks in attendance. I hope some will add their impressions of the day. Pat Farrell Grad Student http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrell Info. Systems & Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available on homepage #include <standard.disclaimer>

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Re: The Newspaper sez J.Clark sez "Uncle Sam Needed for Net Security"
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:47 PM 12/5/95 MET, Andreas Bogk <andreas(a)artcom.de> wrote: > Bryce> To secure Net communications, the government will > Bryce> need to have access to private data exchanges using what is > Bryce> known as a key escrow security system, said Clark. He added > >Who was the guy who asked why "we" are mad at netscape? Well, I am >because of exactly this blatant lie. If you examine the grammar carefully, it's not a blatant lie, it's quite correct. If the government is going to "secure" (either using the definition of "obtain for oneself" or "tie down") Net communications, it will need to use some obnoxiously interfering technique, and so-called key-escrow is one way to do it. Alternatively, using the definition of "secure" as "protect", it will need to have access to private communications only through security systems such as _real_ escrow, in which some mutually trusted third party holds some assets until both parties have fulfilled the terms of the escrow contract. If you don't have a mutually trusted third party, or one party doesn't deliver an asset it's supposed to, or the other party doesn't play fair, then the transaction fails; making sure it succeeds or fails cleanly, and verifying the status of the transaction at any time, is the escrow agent's job. Government Access to Keys (GAK) is something radically different; the government agrees not to interfere with your communications if you deliver your keys to some other part of the government. There's no trusted third party (unless you trust the government), wiretap rules generally forbid verifying to the victim whether his communications are tapped or not, and the deal with the non-independent escrow agent allows the government to change the terms of the so-called escrow at any time, unlike a real escrow agreement. (In other words, it's a lie, a total crock, and absolutely UnAmerican, and there isn't even a House UnAmerican Activities Committee* to complain to :-) [ * Translation for you non-Americans; the term "UnAmerican" means "something the good honest people of this country disapprove of, like Communism and Socialism and maybe Communism and even occasionally Fascism in extreme cases and especially Communism (but certainly not things like racism or militarism or corrupt lying politicians)" The House UnAmerican Activities Committee was a committee of Congressmen who went around investigating anybody they didn't like and suspected of being Communist, or could accuse of being Communist if they didn't like them. They were most active during the 1950s and 1960s, and are fortunately gone by now.] #-- # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, Freelance Information Architect, stewarts(a)ix.netcom.com # Phone +1-510-247-0663 Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281 # Anybody notice that Microsoft's Wide Open Road ad has barbed-wire fences # on both sides of the road?

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Netscape Bug Bounty...
by Jeff Weinstein 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

FYI, since both the bounty and the particular bug have been discussed here... We are awarding Scott Weston $1000 for reporting the LiveScript history problem. The announcement should show up on our Bug Bounty winner's page by tomorrow. --Jeff Jeff Weinstein - Electronic Munitions Specialist Netscape Communication Corporation jsw(a)netscape.com - http://home.netscape.com/people/jsw Any opinions expressed above are mine.

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Re: NIST GAK export meeting, short version
by Rich Salz 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>_do control_. They hope that the pain of having multiple versions will be >so high that no vendor will bother, and all we'll have is crippled >software. >I think that the real key is for everyone, worldwide to insist on >both strong crypto and interoperability. Anything that uses cryptography absolutely and positively *must* support multiple cryptographic protocols. Tag every RPC, transaction, method invocation, what-have-you with some indicator that indicates not only "encrypted" but "encrypted via method 2". Allow customers to specify policy, at least via an environment variable such as NETSCAPE_SSL_PROTECTION=1,2,4 where the online documentation says 1 = 512bit RSA 2 = 256bit RSA 4 = Rot 13 Design open, extensible architectures with public registries and protocol descriptions. /r$

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[Political Noise?] Banking law changes proposed
by E. ALLEN SMITH 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

In regard to the following, I wonder if anyone knows if they're also proposing changes that will make banking secrecy more difficult? I know about the other proposals (Carribean treaty and all that), but this report isn't complete enough to tell if Greenspan and the other regulators are also suggesting things. -Allen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (c) 1995 Copyright Nando.net (c) 1995 Associated Press WASHINGTON (Dec 5, 1995 - 16:57 EST) -- Foreign banks can expect greater scrutiny of their trading, auditing and other internal controls in the wake of the Daiwa and Barings Bank disasters, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and other regulators said Tuesday. Greenspan and others told a House Banking subcommittee that with the lightning quick movement of money around global computer networks, a breakdown in internal systems could cause losses that spill over into the broader financial system. [...] Greenspan and a top House Republican, Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J., supported stricter audit standards for banks. "We are considering a number of initiatives that may be implemented at an administrative level, especially with respect to internal and external controls," Greenspan told a House Banking subcommittee on financial institutions. [...] Roukema and the panel's leading Democrat, Rep. Bruce Vento, D-Minn., said they want the General Accounting Office to study the adequacy of a 1991 law aimed at improving U.S. supervision of foreign banks. Vento cited a string of international banking scandals in recent years, ranging from collapse of Barings Bank to the problems surrounding Bank of Credit and Commerce International, and said that the global supervision system suffers from "a serious problem." [...] Greenspan said international bank regulators are recognizing they must work together more closely to protect the integrity of the global banking system. Japan's Ministry of Finance drew heavy criticism in the Daiwa case for waiting six weeks before informing U.S. regulators about Daiwa's losses last summer.

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re: NIST GAK export meeting, sv
by nobody＠REPLAY.COM 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - From Pat Farrell's <pfarrell(a)netcom.com> short summary of the NIST GAK meeting (12/5/95 5:49 PM): >My favorite policeman, Geoff Greiveldinger, then described the >characteristics of an acceptable key escrow agent. There was a long list >of criteria, all unseen before the meeting. The general reaction >of the audience was that these were "yet another set of criteria that >must be met." Geoff claimed that they were simply trying to address >the questions raised at the earlier meeting about who is an >acceptable escrow agent. One point that caused a lot of concern >was that at least one employee of the escrow agent has to have a SECRET >clearence. (Thanks for the summary, Pat.) This last bit is really rich. I can't think of a single publically defensible reason for the stipulation that every escrow agent must employ someone with SECRET clearance, but I *can* think of a publically indefensible reason for it -- to facilitate those spooky non-court wiretap authorizations that've been alluded to in the fine print of the GAK proposals. Of course, just because escrow agents would be required to hire *someone* with a SECRET clearance doesn't mean that *anyone* with a SECRET clearance would fill the bill. And that's the rub: the administration of clearing people-with-SECRET-clearances for escrow agent employment would be conducted -- where else? -- *in secret*. SECRET clearance, of course, wouldn't be the salient criterion; after all, there are people on the Cypherpunks list -- and a few who aren't on it but are like-minded -- who'd be, uh, reluctant to deliver keys in the absence of a a wiretap authorized by a judge. And, as a petty aside, it's nice to see that the gov't had cooked up yet another way to force potentially legitimate businesses to pay its stoolpigeons to chip away out our civil rights. Hieronymous -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQBVAwUBMMTbw73g0mNE55u1AQEyPQIAsFDidHJrD7fjCee8Wa7ufj7MFnvJGYCQ zGZR7VdtpV4IGp52SvW8UBiJjv7FeWkmwwGWD43MN/88f79MpTCO3Q== =DOoi -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: French crypto restricti
by Joe Tardo 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Reply to: RE>>French crypto restrictions - update ? Would this imply that Netscape supplied source code to SCSSI? From: Laurent Demailly > Yes Netscape got the authorisation to sell Netscape navigator in > France (40 bits) but there is no policy changes or whatever, it is > still a tedious product by product process to get auth for crypto and

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Re: Info on Netscape's key escrow position
by blancw＠accessone.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

From: "James M. Cobb" Blanc, On 12 02 95 you pointed to: ...an underlying problem, which is of not having a sense of freedom to stand up to the Dark Side. You have put your finger on perhaps THE problem: Why did we cast aside our sense of freedom? How may we re-ignite the spirit of freedom? ......................................................... Yes, I think it's a pretty important element to ponder, this lack of the sense of freedom. I don't think that "we" all (especially on this list!) have cast it aside. I do notice that it seems to dissipitate the closer that one gets to govmt agencies (or vice versa). I have often heard people say "well, if it becomes a law, we'll have to uphold it". That seems to be the end of all effort towards reality, as though no further advancements toward truth were possible. It's a continual problem, fostered from being in the lower rungs of the pecking order of "authority" and then beginning to think that one rightly belongs there. Yet how often, especially lately, does technological progress make obsolete what yesterday was an "important" social/political issue requiring "offical intervention" from higher authorities to impose the lowest standards of functioning so that everyone could "get along". Sometimes the issue just goes away from atrophy or obsolescence, once certain talented individuals discover new, improved ways of getting things done. Of course, there's still always another social fear to overcome, and the more that inventors & scientists & techonologists push back the envelope of what is possible (especially in the field of electronics & communication), the closer they get to the gist of the problem with people's attitudes & behavior toward each other, and the closer also to the governing agencies which were created to deal with these concerns. Some things I know which inspire the sense of freedom to stand up to the Dark Side is to have definite knowledge, integrity, a personal vision of the future (an ideal), and some really useful tools (be they hardware or software). This list is intended to focus on the tools of cryptography in relation to privacy, James, and far-off digressions are discouraged because of the volume of mail which this would result in. So do try to focus on that, won't you, or you'll continue to hear from Perry, who works tirelessly to keep everyone in line. :>) .. Blanc

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re: NIST GAK export meeting, sv
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Hieronymous(a)bosch.art wrote: > (Thanks for the summary, Pat.) I concure. Nice summary. I hope Pat doesn't run out of steam before getting the full version out (writing summaries can sometimes do that). > This last bit is really rich. I can't think of a single publically >defensible reason for the stipulation that every escrow agent must employ >someone with SECRET clearance, but I *can* think of a publically >indefensible reason for it -- to facilitate those spooky non-court wiretap >authorizations that've been alluded to in the fine print of the GAK >proposals. One "defensible" (and maybe even good) reason is because someone with government clearance can then be prosecuted for leaking what they know, whereas ordinary citizens are harder to prosecute for this. I doubt this is the main reason, but it makes a certain kind of sense. But there are other more interesting links between Secret clearances and wiretaps. The "Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court" meets in Arlington, VA as the need arises to authorize wiretaps in private, for intelligence collection reasons. I think this has been discussed a couple of times on the list, so a search of the archives might be useful to those who are curious. (Also, a couple of the recent book on the Intelligence Support Activity, Ruby Fruit, etc., have details on how this court operates.) Though little of how GAK has been released (or reported here, or in the press), there is no doubt in my mind that this Foreign Intelligence court would of course continue to get its own wiretap authorizations. (And not only "foreigners" are involved: anyone who is believed to have importance to an intelligence matter is fair game for this court to consider. Which is not surprising, really, as the goal is partly to catch spies and plug security leaks--before someone goes ballistic and accuses me of Betraying the Cause, I'm just describing things as they are. And surely some security measures are warranted, even to Cypherpunks!) > Of course, just because escrow agents would be required to hire >*someone* with a SECRET clearance doesn't mean that *anyone* with a SECRET >clearance would fill the bill. And that's the rub: the administration of >clearing people-with-SECRET-clearances for escrow agent employment would >be conducted -- where else? -- *in secret*. SECRET clearance, of course, >wouldn't be the salient criterion; after all, there are people on the >Cypherpunks list -- and a few who aren't on it but are like-minded -- >who'd be, uh, reluctant to deliver keys in the absence of a a wiretap >authorized by a judge. > And, as a petty aside, it's nice to see that the gov't had cooked up >yet another way to force potentially legitimate businesses to pay its >stoolpigeons to chip away out our civil rights. Many think tanks and defense contractors have "sheep-dipped" retired intelligence officials working for them and continuing to report (in various ways) to their former paymasters. Sometimes these sheep-dipped agents are just there to keep tabs on what's going on, sometimes they're there to nudge these companies in certain directions, and sometimes they are actually running "deniable" applications from the private sector. (Recall Hughes, Air America, Castle Bank, etc.) I can imagine that if some companies talked about in connection with certain questionable activities (Banker's Trust, Bank of America, Wackenhut, SAIC, etc.) were to bid for the contract to be a GAK Agent, then there would be contacts back to the intelligence agencies. But most GAK accesses would be handled through normal channels, albeit secret. --Tim May Views here are not the views of my Internet Service Provider or Government. ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay(a)got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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New version of SSL 3.0
by Phil Karlton 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[This is the second try at sending this message.] SSL 3.0 protocol has been substantially changed from earlier drafts to fix a number of performance and cyrptographic issues. The latest version can be found as PostScript in a compressed tar file on ftp://ftp<N>.netscape.com/pub/review/ssl-spec.tar.Z where <N> is a digit in the range [2-8]. An HTML version should be available in a day or two. I will post the URL when that happens. Netscape is also in the process of submitting this draft to IETF. Questions and comments about this specification should all be directed to ssl-talk(a)netscape.com. Answers and replies will be posted there. We are quite interested in your feedback. As new eyes see the spec for the first time, I suspect that we will be notified about typos and areas that are not as clear as they should be. As a result, there will probably be an update in 2 weeks or so. PK -- Philip L. Karlton karlton(a)netscape.com Principal Curmudgeon http://www.netscape.com/people/karlton Netscape Communications

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