December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Re: is there no end to AP & Creative Wiretap Arguments?
by Hallam-Baker 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Steve Schear wrote: > How about as a means of coercing war criminals ethnic purgers, as those in > Bosnia/Serbia, to turn themselves in to proper tribunals for judging. > Having AP bettors wager $100,000s on your untimely retirement, unless you > turn yourself in, could induce one to consider conventional justice. On the other hand it would provide said war criminals with a convenient mechanism for carrying out their crimes. It does not work for Bell and his appologists to wave their hands and say "trust me it will be better". There is absolutely no reason to believe that AP markets would be used by anyone but psychopaths. No mechanism is proposed which restricts the purposes to which the AP markets can be put. They would inevitably be used by the KKK and neo-NAZI groups for hate-crimes. > All human rights are Naturally derived as are the 'Laws of the Jungle'. > Governments instituted among men should derive their rights from the > soverignty of its citizens. Unfortunately, many countries choose to ignore > this. AP should serve an occassionally competitive system to keep the > 'duly consistuted' system on its toes lest those in authority reap the law > of the jungle. Rights do not exist outside a legal framework that supports them. Arguments from natural law have been discredited for 300+ years. Such arguments merely reify the prejudices of one society into axiomatic rights without the bother of having to justify them. There is no logical basis to prefer the "rights" of th US constitution over the "rights" recognised by the Islamic Jihad. If you read the US declaration of Independence it is very clear that its authors rejected natural law arguments. The rights that they hold to be "self evident" are extreemly abstract principles which could be justified within almost any ethical system. The removal of the word "God" was deliberate and reflects a concious rejection of the natural law argument. AP is self-contradictory. It claims to uphold "rights" by infringing them massively and disproportionately and in such a way that no rights would remain. It is impossible to justify AP except in extreeme authoritarian terms that could be used to justify any system of government. Phill

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Kantor Mischaracterizes
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

The Washington Post, October 18, 1996, p. A26. The Administration's Encryption Plan I write in response to The Post's Oct. 4 editorial [below] that mischaracterizes the administration's recent encryption plan. The administration's encryption plan is reasonable, workable, fair and coherent. It addresses the critical issues of promoting the export of encryption products and protecting the public safety and our national security. The administration's objective is to put forth a balanced plan that promotes commerce and protects people. And that's exactly what we've done. The proof that our plan will work is with the critical mass of industry that has announced its intention to work with the administration to develop a key recovery system, which will allow law enforcement, under proper court order, to have access to encrypted data. In fact, many of these companies have products they will soon market that both safeguard information and protect society, and more are expected to follow. The National Research Council (NRC) report to which the editorial referred recommended allowing the export of encryption up to the strength of 56 bits. Contrary to the editorial, the president has not "embraced a looser form of licensure" than this report. Instead, this administration's plan allows the export of encryption up to 56 bits so long as industry commits to build and market products that support a key recovery system. This is, in fact, a stronger form of licensure not called for by the NRC report. The Post's editorial conveniently ignores the critical role encrypted products play in protecting businesses against illegal activity and the privacy rights of individuals. This is a disturbing omission that avoids critical concerns that can only be advanced by the administration's plan. Finally, this administration takes seriously its responsibility to protect its citizens and our national security. That's why we are not lifting all restrictions on the export of encryption products, and why there is a two-year deadline on the export of 56-bit encryption products. The administration's plan will accelerate the development of a market-driven, global key management system. That will provide the best security of all. Michael Kantor Secretary of Commerce Washington [End] ---------- The Washington Post, October 4, 1996, p. A22. Crypto Politics [Editorial] The Clinton administration once had a coherent, if unpopular, position on encryption software, the stuff that allows you to encode your email messages or other data so that no one can read it en route without a key. Now, in the wake of word that the president will sign an executive order, the position is no longer coherent, nor discernibly more popular with the high-tech audience it attempts to mollify. People and companies doing international financial business are highly interested in this kind of software, the more powerfully "uncrackable" the better. The U.S. software industry thinks there's a lot of money in it, especially if encryption becomes routine. The administration position till recently was that, much as U.S. software companies might profit from being able to market "uncrackable" encryption software freely, national security and law enforcement considerations dictated that such exports be controlled by license. Powerful encryption, like arms, could be dangerous in the hands of terrorists, rogue governments or international criminals. The software was classed as a munition; software above a certain uncrackability level could not be exported unless law enforcement authorities could get access somehow to the "key" after obtaining the proper warrants. Unbreakable codes on the loose strike us as a real danger, a legitimate reason for tight export controls. But if the administration really believes this, you'd think it would stick with steps that can plausibly meet the goal of control. Instead, trying to please, it has been splitting and splitting the difference between itself and the largely unmoved industry, which argues that no one will buy an encryption product that a government can decrypt at will. As with arms sales, the companies also argue that if they don't sell it, somebody else will, and that anyway it's far too late to fence off rogues. The national security people respond that there is still a "window," perhaps two years, in which they can prevent, if not all leaks of unauthorized crypto technology, at least its off-the-shelf use and wide adoption as the international standard. The administration initially proposed, then repeatedly refined, the concept of key "escrow" -- depositing a copy of the code with trusted third parties -- but never came up with a version the industry would accept. It commissioned a National Research Council report, which recommended a significant easing of restrictions. Now the president appears to have embraced a yet looser form of licensure upon declaration by a company that it will develop a plan within two years for key recovery. Also, the technology no longer will be considered munitions. What kind of plan? Nobody can quite say. What if the plans aren't acceptable? Licensing will revert to the old rule in two years. Will the security issue be moot by then? Probably. Barring some burst of clarity, one is left wondering whether the administration has compromised or caved, and what it now believes about the dangers of exporting uncrackable software. [End] See the National Research Council report: http://jya.com/nrcindex.htm

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Real Meaning of "Key Recovery" (was Re: DES cracker...)
by Andrew Loewenstern 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Peter Trei, whilst talking about a key cracking effort, said: > For the Key Recovery effort (please call it Key Recovery - > this has important psychological implications in the US) Yes yes! What a great way to "reclaim" this term... CC'ed to cypherpunks for all to see. No longer is it "Key Cracking" it is now "Key Recovery" ... andrew

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Re: "Stopping Crime" Necessarily Means Invasiveness
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 10:20 AM 10/18/96 MET, Bert-Jaap Koops wrote: >At present, I worry more about the threat of (organized) crime than >about the threat of government abuse, call it Dutch naivete if you >want. > >So much for politics. Can we get back to crypto? >Bert-Jaap Ah! So you want to discuss the ARCHITECTURE of those concentration camps, rather than the messy details about how they are to be filled, huh? Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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Judge rules "harmless flame" is harassment
by Robert Hettinga 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

--- begin forwarded text Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 20:42:26 -0400 From: oldbear(a)arctos.com (The Old Bear) (by way of rah(a)shipwright.com (Robert A. Hettinga)) To: rah(a)shipwright.com Subject: Judge rules "harmless flame" is harassment Organization: The Arctos Group - http://www.arctos.com/arctos Mime-Version: 1.0 Path: news-central.tiac.net!news-in.tiac.net!posterchild!arctos.com!oldbear Newsgroups: tiac Lines: 23 NNTP-Posting-Host: arctos.com X-Newsreader: Trumpet for Windows [Version 1.0 Rev B final beta #4] X-Newsreader: Yet Another NewsWatcher 2.3.0 Status: RO hmmm.... there is something strangely familiar about the premise behind this story, but I can't seem to figure out what it might be... JUDGE ORDERS DALLAS MAN TO CEASE HARASSMENT ON NET A district judge in Texas has issued a restraining order against a Dallas man who was using the Internet to post sexually derogatory remarks about the wife of a couple who operate an Internet Service Provider. The man said he had developed "a bad taste in (his) mouth" after trying unsuccessfully to reach the company to price its services; however, he now "wholeheartedly, 100 percent" denies that his messages were threatening and insists that they merely adopted the sarcastic language typically found on the Internet. source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution October 17, 1996 --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah(a)shipwright.com) e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "The cost of anything is the foregone alternative" -- Walter Johnson The e$ Home Page: http://www.vmeng.com/rah/

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EU: avoid "safe havens", make remailers traceable
by um＠c2.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

ILLEGAL AND HARMFUL CONTENT ON THE INTERNET Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Table of Contents with some excerpts (full text at http://www2.echo.lu/legal/en/internet/content/communic.html) 1. The opportunities of the Internet 2. How does the Internet work? 3. Illegal and harmful content on Internet It is crucial to differentiate between content which is illegal and other harmful content: A. Illegal content Protection of the public order (child pornography, racist hatred, terrorism, fraud), and rights of individuals (breach of copyright, libel, invasion of privacy or unlawful comparative advertising) B. Harmful content Material may offend the values and feelings; depends on cultural differences. 4. Identifying and combating illegal content on Internet A. Technical limits to law enforcement Control can really only occur at the entry and exit points to the Network. Thus additional international co-operation is required to avoid "safe havens" for documents contrary to general rules of criminal law. B. The role of Internet access providers and host service providers i) Legal responsibilities ii) Self-regulation iii) Removal of files from the servers iv) Blocking access at the level of access providers Singaporean model is inconceivable for Europe as it would severley interfere with the freedom of the individual. Practical feasibility remains open to question. An approach which involes requiring access providers to block access to illegal content on a case-by-case basis has been followed recently by law enforcement authorities in Germany. A number of anti-blocking tactics were also immediately put in place. At the latest count, the document is mirrored on 43 WWW sites and 2 newsgroups and is available from an e-mail listserver. Upstream blocking of sites may therefore present a number of significant shortcomings. It may not prevent, in particular, criminal users from "hopping" from one Internet mode to the other, i.e. from a Web page, to a Usenet newsgroup, to standard e-mail. C. Anonymous use of the Internet Users of the Internet are normally identified. This is desirable in accordance with the democratic principle that individuals, while free to express their thoughts and beliefs, should nevertheless be accountable for their actions. Law enforcement authorities have expressed concern at various techniques which allow anonymous use of the Internet. This may facilitate sending illegal content by making it difficult or impossible to identify the offender. The legitimate need for anonymity should be reconciled with the principles of legal traceability. The Safety Net proposals take the view that use of truly anonymous accounts is a danger, while use of traceable pseudonyms is not. They propose measures to close known loopholes and improve traceability and that anonymous remailers record details of identity. These details would be subject to data protection legislation. The question of legal traceability needs work both on technical issues and on global co-operation in order for measures to be effective. D. Judicial and police co-operation at EU and international level 5. Dealing with harmful content on Internet A. The principle of freedom of expression The right to freedom of expression, as affirmed by the European Convention on Human Rights, can be subject to some conditions, is not absolute and subject to important qualifications, for instance permitting licensing of broadcasting or cinema enterprises. Any regulatory action intended to protect minors should not take the form of an unconditional prohibition of using the Internet to distribute certain content that is available freely in other media. B. The legal framework of the Internet market The measures must be appropriate to achieve the pursued objective and may not exceed what is necessary to achieve their aim. C. Parental control software: empowering parents to protect minors Useful as a "line of defence" at the end-user level, filtering software can also be applied at various stages in the transmission process, for example by host service providers or access providers. D. PICS: a global industry standard E. The extent to which filtering can be used F. European rating systems G. Educating the public 6. Policy options/conclusions 1. Illegal content a) Co-operation between Member States b) Liability of access providers and host service providers Need for a common European framework to clarify the administrative rules and regulations which apply to access providers. c) Encourage self-regulation 2. Harmful content Encourage the use of filtering software such as PICS. 3. INTERNATIONAL ISSUES a) An International Conference At the Industry Council of 8 October 1996, the invitation by Germany to host an International Conference was accepted. This will involve representatives of law-enforcement authorities, together with representatives of providers and users: Discussion on the possibility of an international convention on illegal and harmful content. b) Extension of the dialogue 4. Support actions a) Transparency mechanism b) Information Web site

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Re: Your editorial in the 10/14 PCWeek
by jim bell 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 11:55 AM 10/17/96 -0400, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote: >On Wed, 16 Oct 1996, Marshall Clow wrote: >[...] >> In a paper about privacy and the original Clipper proposal (in 1994) >...Jan '95 actually... >> A. Michael Froomkin of the University of Miami School of Law pointed out >> that since the entire key-escrow infastructure was created by >> presidential decree, and the proposed key holders were part of the >> executive branch, the provisions for release of the keys could be >> changed at a moment's notice by another presidential decree, which need >> not ever be made public. [ Yo, key escrow dude! Email your key database >> to wiretappers(a)fbi.gov, and don't tell anyone! ] > >I still think this is a major issue; it is one, however, that goes away if >they pass a well-drafted statute. Are you sure about that? "If they pass a well-drafted statute," the president couldn't just declare a "national emergency" (similar to all of the other "national emergencies" we are under right now) and send that same message to the key-keepers demanding they send their databases? Given the massive misbehavior of government in general, I'm not at all confident something like this couldn't happen. I'm waiting for the first indication that these GAK systems will include some sort of government-fraud-preventative measures, possibly an irrevocable allowance (or even a requirement?) that any key holder can publicize the fact of any key request at the time it is made, or after a minimal time like a couple of weeks or so. That way, government abuse of the system would be revealed, beyond the control of the government. Jim Bell jimbell(a)pacifier.com

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FYI - Biham/Shamir Differential Fault Analysis of DES, etc.
by Matt Blaze 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

------- Forwarded Message From: Shamir Adi <shamir(a)wisdom.weizmann.ac.il> Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 16:30:34 +0200 Message-Id: <199610181430.QAA20359(a)white.wisdom.weizmann.ac.il> To: benaloh(a)microsoft.com, brassard(a)iro.umontreal.ca, canetti(a)theory.lcs.mit.edu, crepeau(a)iro.umontreal.ca, david(a)digicash.com, daw(a)cs.berkeley.edu, mab(a)research.att.com, mihir(a)watson.ibm.com, rogaway(a)cs.ucdavis.edu, schneier(a)counterpane.com Subject: A new attack on DES Research announcement: A new cryptanalytic attack on DES Eli Biham Adi Shamir Computer Science Dept. Applied Math Dept. The Technion The Weizmann Institute Israel Israel October 18, 1996 (DRAFT) In September 96, Boneh Demillo and Lipton from Bellcore announced an ingenious new type of cryptanalytic attack which received widespread attention (see, e.g., John Markoff's 9/26/96 article in the New York Times). Their full paper had not been published so far, but Bellcore's press release and the authors' FAQ (available at http://www.bellcore.com/PRESS/ADVSRY96/medadv.html) specifically state that the attack is applicable only to public key cryptosystems such as RSA, and not to secret key algorithms such as the Data Encryption Standard (DES). According to Boneh, "The algorithm that we apply to the device's faulty computations works against the algebraic structure used in public key cryptography, and another algorithm will have to be devised to work against the nonalgebraic operations that are used in secret key techniques." In particular, the original Bellcore attack is based on specific algebraic properties of modular arithmetic, and cannot handle the complex bit manipulations which underly most secret key algorithms. In this research announcement, we describe a related attack (which we call Differential Fault Analysis, or DFA), and show that it is applicable to almost any secret key cryptosystem proposed so far in the open literature. In particular, we have actually implemented DFA in the case of DES, and demonstrated that under the same hardware fault model used by the Bellcore researchers, we can extract the full DES key from a sealed tamperproof DES encryptor by analysing fewer than 200 ciphertexts generated from unknown cleartexts. The power of Differential Fault Analysis is demonstrated by the fact that even if DES is replaced by triple DES (whose 168 bits of key were assumed to make it practically invulnerable), essentially the same attack can break it with essentially the same number of given ciphertexts. We would like to greatfully acknowledge the pioneering contribution of Boneh Demillo and Lipton, whose ideas were the starting point of our new attack. In the rest of this research announcement, we provide a short technical summary of our practical implementation of Differential Fault Analysis of DES. Similar attacks against a large number of other secret key cryptosystems will be described in the full version of our paper. TECHNICAL DETAILS OF THE ATTACK The attack follows the Bellcore fundamental assumption that by exposing a sealed tamperproof device such as a smart card to certain physical effects (e.g., ionizing or microwave radiation), one can induce with reasonable probability a fault at a random bit location in one of the registers at some random intermediate stage in the cryptographic computation. Both the bit location and the round number are unknown to the attacker. We further assume that the attacker is in physical possesion of the tamperproofdevice, so that he can repeat the experiment with the same cleartext and key but without applying the external physical effects. As a result, he obtains two ciphertexts derived from the same (unknown) cleartext and key, where one of the ciphertexts is correct and the other is the result of a computation corrupted by a single bit error during the computation. For the sake of simplicity, we assume that one bit of the right half of the data in one of the 16 rounds of DES is flipped from 0 to 1 or vice versa, and that both the bit position and the round number are uniformly distributed. In the first step of the attack we identify the round in which the fault occurred. This identification is very simple and effective: If the fault occurred in the right half of round 16, then only one bit in the right half of the ciphertext (before the final permutation) differs between the two ciphertexts. The left half of the ciphertext can differ only in output bits of the S box (or two S boxes) to which this single bit enters, and the difference must be related to non-zero entries in the difference distribution tables of these S boxes. In such a case, we can guess the six key bit of each such S box in the last round, and discard any value which disagree with the expected differences of these S boxes (e.g., differential cryptanalysis). On average, about four possible 6-bit values of the key remain for each active S box. If the faults occur in round 15, we can gain information on the key bits entering more than two S boxes in the last round: the difference of the right half of the ciphertext equals the output difference of the F function of round 15. We guess the single bit fault in round 15, and verify whether it can cause the expected output difference, and also verify whether the difference of the right half of the ciphertext can cause the expected difference in the output of the F function in the last round (e.g., the difference of the left half of the ciphertext XOR the fault). If successful, we can discard possible key values in the last round, according to the expected differences. We can also analyse the faults in the 14'th round in a similar way. We use counting methods in order to find the key. In this case, we count for each S box separately, and increase the counter by one for any pair which suggest the six-bit key value by at least one of its possible faults in either the 14'th, 15'th, or 16'th round. We have implemented this attack on a personal computer. Our analysis program found the whole last subkey given less than 200 ciphertexts, with random single-faults in all the rounds. This attack finds the last subkey. Once this subkey is known, we can proceed in two ways: We can use the fact that this subkey contains 48 out of the 56 key bits in order to guess the missing 8 bits in all the possible 2^8=256 ways. Alternatively, we can use our knowledge of the last subkey to peel up the last round (and remove faults that we already identified), and analyse the preceding rounds with the same data using the same attack. This latter approach makes it possible to attack triple DES (with 168 bit keys), or DES with independent subkeys (with 768 bit keys). This attack still works even with more general assumptions on the fault locations, such as faults inside the function F, or even faults in the key scheduling algorithm. We also expect that faults in round 13 (or even prior to round 13) might be useful for the analysis, thus reducing the number of required ciphertext for the full analysis. OTHER VULNERABLE CIPHERS Differential Fault Analysis can break many additional secret key cryptosystems, including IDEA, RC5 and Feal. Some ciphers, such as Khufu, Khafre and Blowfish compute their S boxes from the key material. In such ciphers, it may be even possible to extract the S boxes themselves, and the keys, using the techniques of Differential Fault Analysis. Differential Fault Analysis can also be applied against stream ciphers, but the implementation might differ by some technical details from the implementation described above. ------- End of Forwarded Message

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news item on Atlanta bank
by P. J. Ponder 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

from: [http://netday.iworld.com/news1.shtml] news(a)iworld.com "CyberBank" Opens for Business [October 18] -- Atlanta Internet Bank reports its cyberdoors are open for business as the world's first Internet-only bank. Currently available to AT&T WorldNet Service subscribers, Atlanta Internet Bank's initial products include interest-bearing checking accounts, direct deposit, electronic bill payment, account transfer capability, and ATM cards. The bank has announced the launch of its "anytime- anywhere" service with special interest rates on money market accounts. For a limited time, Atlanta Internet Bank is offering 7% interest (annual percentage yield of 6.18%) on NetVantage money market accounts to WorldNet subscribers. "This is the beginning of a new era in financial services," said Atlanta Internet Bank President Don Shapleigh. "We're using bits and bytes instead of bricks and mortar and passing the savings on to our customers. This will allow us to maintain very competitive rates after the introductory rate offer expires." Future services planned by the new bank include loan products, brokerage services, IRA accounts, and credit and debit cards. "Atlanta Internet Bank has taken a giant step into the electronic commerce marketplace," said Jeffrey Feldman, AT&T's Advanced Network Solutions vice president. "AT&T's Advanced Network Solutions team firm believes that banks and other financial service providers will win customer loyalty by offering their own branded, electronic environments that deliver real value to end users--just as Atlanta Internet Bank has demonstrated." Atlanta Internet Bank's services are provided through Carolina First Bank, Greenville, S.C., a wholly owned subsidiary of Carolina First Corporation.with multiple providers to achieve our strategic goals." -- to unsubscribe from cypherpunks, send to majordomo(a)toad.com unsubscribe cypherpunks in the message body, not the Subject: line

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Brock Meeks on NSA domestic codebreaking, from Muckraker
by declan＠well.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

This is Brock's unedited Muckraker that's up at HotWired today (http://www.muckraker.com) Forwarded with permission. --Declan ********** Crypto Mission Creep By Brock N. Meeks (brock(a)well.com) The Justice Department has, for the first time, publicly acknowledged using the code-breaking technologies of the National Security Agency, to help with domestic cases, a situation that strains legal boundaries of the agency. Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick admitted in July, during an open hearing of the Senate's Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations, that the Justice Department: "Where, for example, we are having trouble decrypting information in a computer, and the expertise lies at the NSA, we have asked for technical assistance under our control." That revelation should have been a bombshell. But like an Olympic diver, the revelation made hardly a ripple. By law the NSA is allowed to spy on foreign communications without warrant or congressional oversight. Indeed, it is one of the most secretive agencies of the U.S. government, whose existence wasn't even publicly acknowledged until the mid-1960s. However, it is forbidden to get involved in domestic affairs. During the hearing Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) asked Gorelick if the President had the "the constitutional authority to override statutes where the basic security of the country is at stake?" He then laid out a scenario: "Let's say a whole part of the country is, in effect, freezing to death in the middle of the winter [because a power grid has been destroyed] and you believe it's domestic source, but you can't trace it, because the FBI doesn't have the capability. What do you do?" Gorelick replied that: "Well, one thing you could do -- let me say this, one thing you could do is you could detail resources from the intelligence community to the law enforcement community. That is, if it's under -- if it's -- if you're talking about a technological capability, we have done that." And then she mentioned that the NSA had been called on to help crack some encrypted data. But no one caught the significance of Gorelick's' statements. Instead, the press focused on another proposal she outlined, the creation of what amounts to a "Manhattan Project" to help thwart the threat of information warfare. "What we need, then, is the equivalent of the 'Manhattan Project' for infrastructure protection, a cooperative venture between the government and private sector to put our best minds together to come up with workable solutions to one of our most difficult challenges,'' Gorelick told Congress. Just a day earlier, President Clinton had signed an executive order creating a blue-ribbon panel, made up of several agencies, including the Justice Department, the CIA, the Pentagon and the NSA and representatives of the private sector. Though the press missed the news that day; the intelligence agency shivered. When I began investigating Gorelick's statement, all I got were muffled grumbling. I called an NSA official at home for comments. "Oh shit," he said, and then silence. "Can you elaborate a bit on that statement?" I asked, trying to stifle a chuckle. "I think my comment says it all," he said and abruptly hung up the phone. Plumbing several sources within the FBI drew little more insight. One source did acknowledge that the Bureau had used the NSA to crack some encrypted data "in a handful of instances," but he declined to elaborate. Was the Justice Department acting illegally by pulling the NSA into domestic work? Gorelick was asked by Sen. Nunn if the FBI had the legal authority to call on the NSA to do code-breaking work. "We have authority right now to ask for assistance where we think that there might be a threat to the national security," she replied. But her answer was "soft." She continued: "If we know for certain that there is a -- that this is a non-national security criminal threat, the authority is much more questionable." Questionable, yes, but averted? No. If Gorelick's answers seem coy, maybe it's because her public statements are at odds with one another. A month or so before her congressional bombshell, she revealed the plans for the information age"Manhattan Project" in a speech. In a story for Upside magazine <http://www.upside.com/online/columns/cybersense/9607.html#one>, by old-line investigative reporter Lew Koch, where he broke the story, Gorelick whines in her speech about law enforcement going through "all that effort" to obtain warrants to search for evidence only to find a child pornography had computer files "encrypted with DES" that don't have a key held in escrow. "Dead end for us," Gorelick says. "Is this really the type of constraint we want? Unfortunately, this is not an imaginary scenario. The problem is real." All the while, Gorelick knew, as she would later admit to Congress, that the FBI had, in fact, called the NSA to help break codes. An intelligence industry insider said the NSA involvement is legal. "What makes it legal probably is that when [the NSA] does that work they're really subject to all the constraints that law enforcement is subject to." This source went on to explain that if the FBI used any evidence obtained from the NSA's code-breaking work to make it's case in court, the defense attorney could, under oath, ask the NSA to "explain fully" how it managed to crack the codes. "If I were advising NSA today I would say, there is a substantial risk that [a defense attorney] is going to make [the NSA] describe their methods," he said. "Which means it's very difficult for the NSA to do its best stuff in criminal cases because of that risk." Some 20 years ago, Sen. Frank Church, then chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, warned of getting the NSA involved in domestic affairs, after investigating the agency for illegal acts. He said the "potential to violate the privacy of Americans is unmatched by any other intelligence agency." If the resources of the NSA were ever used domestically, "no American would have any privacy left . . . There would be no place to hide," he said. "We must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is an abyss from which there is no return," he said. And yet, the Clinton Administration has already laid the groundwork for such "mission creep" to take place, with the forming of this "Manhattan Project." But if the Justice Department can tap the NSA at will -- a position of questionable legality that hasn't been fully aired in public debate -- why play such hardball on the key escrow encryption issue? Simple answer: Key escrow is an easier route. As my intelligence community source pointed out, bringing the NSA into the mix causes problems when a case goes to court. Better to have them work in the background, unseen and without oversight, the Administration feels. With key escrow in place, there are few legal issues to hurdle. In the meantime, the Justice Department has started the NSA down the road to crypto mission creep. It could be a road of no return. Meeks out...

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