At 01:56 AM 9/3/97 GMT, bureau42 Anonymous Remailer wrote:
Ira Sockowitz moved from commerce to SBA taking a few things with him:
An excerpt:
The classified information Sockowitz took was so sensitive it threatened to put the National Security Agency, or NSA, out of business, because the files included information about encryption chips (which safeguard computers) that the spy agency itself can't break. These are files for which high-tech companies lust and countries would kill.
Tim Maier's Insight article isn't all that bad, but he obviously doesn't have a good perspective on crypto technology, and unfortunately none of the web pages involved contain good email pointers to their authors :-) (On the other hand, one of the references said Dave Sobel has copies.) Encryption technology the NSA can't break is easy; you've been able to get PGP for about 5 years from Internet sites at Oxford and various other Finnish, Italian, and North American universities, plus lots of good books and conference proceedings. Far more interesting is insight into what they _can_ break :-) Also, the documentation about NSA market studies on encryption, strategies on controlling it, etc., would be amusing to read. I can't comment usefully on Uranium shipments or satellite technology. However, some of the writing about Lockheed and Iridium was a bit on the sensationalist side. In particular, the assertion that Lockheed only gave one political contribution in 1993, before this scandal and (mostly) before Iridium, vs. lots in 1995-1996, is silly. 1992 was an election year, 1994 was Congressional elections, and 1993 was the mostly quiet time in between. Given the numbers of major defense procurements Lockheed's been involved in over the years, I'd be surprised if they aren't making political contributions like everyone else in the industry -- they just make them at times they're useful, and Iridium is just another project. # Thanks; Bill # Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com # You can get PGP outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto/pgp # (If this is a mailing list or news, please Cc: me on replies. Thanks.)