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Key Escrow Papers
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

We have scanned several of the handouts at the NIST Key Escrow Issues Meeting of September 6 (not present Sept 7). Perhaps someone, Pat Farrell or another, would be willing to make them available on a homepage or ftp site. If so we will send them over. If nobody volunteers we will send them by our puny e-mail contraption. Here's what we have ready to send: 1. The outlines of meeting topics of Raymond Kammer of NIST and Michael Nelson of the White House. (7kb) 2. Discussion Paper No. 4, "Example Potential Solutions for the Draft Export Criteria for Software Key Escrow Encryption," which offers example solutions for each of the ten criteria. (7kb) 3. The Business Software Alliance's dissenting blast at the government's key escrow proposal and export limit. This paper was loudly applauded. (19kb) 4. Trusted Informations Systems's "Thoughts on the NIST Escrow Issues Meeting Discussion Papers." (27kb in 2 parts) 5. TECSEC Incorporated's "Private Escrow Key Management: A Method and its Issues." (13kb) 6. Dorothy Denning's "Comments on Draft Criteria for Software Key Escrow Exportability" and "Comments on Issues for Key Escrow Agents." (8kb) Two other papers will be scanned later: 7. National Semiconductor's "Commercial Cryptography Ideas for Success" (9 pp. of large type) This contains graphics of the CAKE program and a "Proposed NIST Escrow Certificate Heirarchy" which cannot be easily distributed by us, so we offer this by fax. 8. TECSEC's "The Merger of Technology and Cryptographic Key Management" (6 pp.). Note 1: It was Michael Nelson of the White House who said that the reason to maintain the 64-bit limit for export was because the key escrow methodology had not yet been proven reliable and that the security agencies insisted on the relatively weak system in case key escrow failed. Note 2: At the B-2 breakout session there was strong debate on a proposal for a "Criteria Zero": Before addressing any of the details of Criteria 3, 4 and 9 as presented to us, Group B-2 registers its view that export under general license of strong encryption should not require key escrow. A vote on the proposal was 7 yes, 7 no and 13 absentions. It was not reported to the plenary session.

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Re: Notes from NIS&T Key Escrow Export conference.
by tcmay＠got.net 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 7:59 PM 9/7/95, Pat Farrell wrote: >>"If keys are escrowed, what purpose does a 64 bit limit serve?" > >This question was asked, it seems like a zillion times, but >probably no more than four or five times. > >It is a bit of a belt and suspenders idea. But it also shows how >scared they are about real encryption. > >It is clear that this meeting is a shame. Everyone in industry ^^^^^ Sham? Or shame? Or, likely, both? Your account of the meeting merely confirms my worst fears. But don't they say the Chinese character for "crisis" also means "opportunity"? (Sort of the way the English word "oversight" has two very different and opposite meanings.) --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- 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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Fade to Black... / Re: Socio-Economic Cults (Re: Cypherpunk Cults)
by Anonymous 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

John Smith wrote: > A Japanese man holes up in his house and shoots at those who try to > take him away. A Caucasian man outside shoots back, fearing that the > Japanese is a spy, whose information will lead to Japanese victory in > the war. Both men are shooting, both fear for their lives. And in > each case, the fear could arguably be justified, based on the > information available to each man at the time. A black man holes up in his car, shooting at a white cop wearing the same uniform as the guy who shoved a toilet plunger up his ass the day before. The cop shoots back, fearing that the black man is a drug dealer who will molest his children, plant a bomb on an airplane, and evade taxes. Both men are shooting, both fear for their lives, and both hate what the other man represents in their mind and life experience and would like to see him dead. The Jap picks them both off, from a rooftop, and lives happily ever after. ILoveAHappyEndingMongel

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Re: ASN.1 and Kerberos version 5
by Carl Ellison 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Sat, 2 Sep 1995 13:55:38 -0400 >From: jis(a)mit.edu (Jeffrey I. Schiller) >I'll say it. I was the person who pushed for the use of ASN.1 in Kerberos >version 5. I had this disease at the time that made me think that ASN.1 was >a good idea. I got better, unfortunately we have been living with the >results of my braino for quite some time now... poor Ted. Jeff, I'm collecting lists of ASN.1 problems as well as better solutions. If you'd care to contribute.... Otherwise, I'll post the results when they're firmed up. I got some *great* material from Burt Kaliski at the P1363 meeting and that needs to be folded in, so I know it's not soup yet. - Carl

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Re: GAK
by terrell＠sam.neosoft.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>Date: Sun, 3 Sep 1995 21:25:26 -0400 (EDT) >From: Brian Davis <bdavis(a)thepoint.net> >Subject: Re: GAK >On Fri, 1 Sep 1995, Timothy C. May wrote: > >> At 10:56 PM 9/1/95, Buford Terrell wrote: >> >> >If you've ever watched Not_at_all_Funny Home Videos or any of the >> >American Urinal school of tabloid television, you soon start feeling >> >that the real threat to privacy is not the guvmint, but all of >> >the yoyos with their little cam corders running around pointing them >> >at people. >> > >> >Security cameras in ATMS and at airline ticket counters do more >> >to threaten you privacy than do FIBBIE wiretaps, and PGP won't >> >protect you from them. (and usually neither will the courts). >> >> I absolutely agree with this, though this doesn't mean I'll stop worrying >> about the government's plans for key escrow (GAK), about limits on key >> lengths, or about other efforts to thwart strong security. > >I, of course, know of the "dislike" of GAK here. I am curious to know, >however, if the "dislike" is because government would have access under >any circumstances or if the primary worry is that government will cheat >and get access when most would agree that they shouldn't (either by the >judge "cheating" or a TLA stealing it). > >In other words ... if it took agreement by a review board composed of >non-LEA members of this list, would the escrow be acceptable?? > >EBD > In my case, it's simply a matter of principle: the government has no right to know what I'm saying. Search warrants may allow them to get to "things" that I have, but the First and Fifth amendments make words sacred. If the government can eavesdrop on my conversation, then my speech is no longer free. A review board consisting of cypherpunks has no more right to listen to my private conversations than does the FBI, so I would not agree to that proposal either. --buford

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Re: Kerberos v5's experience with ASN.1
by Theodore Ts'o 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- To: Cypherpunks Lite <cp-lite(a)comsec.com> Date: Sat, 2 Sep 1995 13:55:38 -0400 From: jis(a)mit.edu (Jeffrey I. Schiller) However, the problem with ASN.1 isn't its waste of space (which actually isn't that bad for a mechanism for encoding arbitrary objects). While I won't argue about the rest of Jeff's note about the use of ASN.1 being a mistake, I do want to point out that certain ASN.1 types are in fact very wasteful of space. Most notable of these is the ASN.1 Generalized Time --- which encodes the a timestamp in ASCII. ASN.1 GeneralizedTime therefore requires 17 bytes to encode, an over four-fold increase in the amount of space needed to store a time, compared with a 4 byte representation of "number of seconds since 1970". This is deadly in a protocol which has to store lots of timestamps, which is the case in Kerberos V5. We could have gotten around this problem by merely storing an integer whenever we needed to store a timestamp, instead of using the ASN.1 abstract type. Then it would have only taken 6 bytes (ASN.1 adds a 2-byte overhead for each object which you store). - Ted -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.2, an Emacs/PGP interface iQCVAwUBME9xO0QVcM1Ga0KJAQGiQwQAhSu4WpeVZ+hsN+o+NvWMwP8JK0GojhuI vWE1M3iIZttz4iMEbsziZ1KzWlkFTL8AKVWkzDAZ8t5lNMis9qObCfaQPQkKTLwJ UV20GjebckOzFx7Rp9OPDDI536cepvcjFN0cQkWtmiW2KP04TU9zr4caD4cfozDJ XYGZavYmpBQ= =9YUm -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: New service allows customers to track stolen PCs (fwd)
by Sean Roach 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 09:51 PM 8/28/97 +0000, Vipul Ved Prakash wrote: > >*** New service allows customers to track stolen PCs > >Absolute Software announced Wednesday the CompuTrace Online Monitoring >Service, a new service that provides CompuTrace customers with various >PC monitoring reports via a private, secured Internet website. >Customers will now have access to the whereabouts of their PCs via the >Online Monitoring Service from any location at any time. CompuTrace's >technology silently calls in to the CompuTrace Monitoring Center on a >regular basis. The activity is reported to customers on a regular >basis, or via the new CompuTrace Online Monitoring Service. ... In a few years, when nearly every home computer is a laptop or other portable. The government will require that a similar service be installed in every machine, (to cut down on theft). A few years later, the government will demand open access to this database (to track terrorists). Even later, as nearly everyone will have a computer by this time, the government will have an effective method of controlling the movement of the population. Why don't we just slap one of those radio transponders around our ankles that some of the more stylish parollees already wear.

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Re: Notes from NIS&T Key Escrow Export conference.
by Peter Trei 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

> >"If keys are escrowed, what purpose does a 64 bit limit serve?" > This question was asked, it seems like a zillion times, but > probably no more than four or five times. > It is a bit of a belt and suspenders idea. But it also shows how > scared they are about real encryption. Is there an actual quote - did an identifiable government person actually use the 'belt and suspenders' line? This is getting to the point where journalists could have something to hang a story on. I think we can infer from this that the USG has, or soon expects to have, the ability to brute 64 bits of key. > It is clear that this meeting is a shame. Everyone in industry ^^^^^^^^ A shame certainly, but I suspect you meant 'sham' (not a spelling flame, the difference in meaning is important). > Pat > Peter Trei Senior Software Engineer Purveyor Development Team Process Software Corporation http://www.process.com trei(a)process.com

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Re: GAK
by cman＠communities.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

One good (non-cypherpunk) argument against GAK is that it concentrates a very large quantity of valuable keys in a few places, where they become an extremely attractive target for government or corporate espionage. You could compare this to the function served by banks, but banks tend to notice fairly quickly when money is missing. Compromising keys doesn't involve removing anything, or throw the books out of balance; they just get copied. The compromise is only revealed if they are used clumsily. Note that a few million keys would fit very easily on even a low-end DAT tape (easily hidden in a pack of cigarettes).

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Re: Notes from NIS&T Key Escrow Export conference.
by pfarrell＠netcom.com 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

>"If keys are escrowed, what purpose does a 64 bit limit serve?" This question was asked, it seems like a zillion times, but probably no more than four or five times. It is a bit of a belt and suspenders idea. But it also shows how scared they are about real encryption. It is clear that this meeting is a shame. Everyone in industry says it won't be marketable. The Govies say it will be great. What they really want is to force weak crypto on the US by forcing the vendors to make a weak product "for export" when all the vendors say that they have to have _only one_ version. If they have one version, and it is weak, we are safe from drug dealers, pedophiles and terrorists. (BTW, I'm used that phrase yesterday, so it should be in the Federal register's offical record.) >Secondarily, I observe that this apparently precludes the use of OTP. No, they don't care about the cipher, only the key length, But with a 64bit, GAK'd key, you can't say much without repeating the P, and that makes it a TTP or a FTP (two time pad, or four time pad) which isn't very useful. You probably can gzip "attack at dawn" to 64 bits, but not much more. Pat Pat Farrell grad student http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrellA Infor. Systems and Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA PGP key available via finger or request #include standard.disclaimer Z~v :$

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