============================================================== @@@@ @@@@ @@@ @@@@ @ @ @@@@ @@@@ @@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@ @ @@@ @@@@@ @ @@@ @@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @@@@ @ @@@ @ @ @ @ @@@@ @@@@ @ @ @ ============================================================= Volume 3.04 February 15, 1994 ------------------------------------------------------------- Published by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Washington Office (Alert@washofc.cpsr.org) SPECIAL EDITION --- CLIPPER UPDATE ------------------------------------------------------------- Contents [1] Clipper Petition Tops 10,000 Mark [2] Safire Slams Clipper [3] A Tough Question [4] Clipper Facts: Definition of "Tesserea" [5] Sign the Clipper Petition! [6] New Files at the CPSR Internet Library ------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Clipper Petition Tops 10,000 Mark The electronic petition begun by CPSR to oppose Clipper has generated well over 10,000 responses in two weeks. The daily signature totals continue to increase, currently running at almost 2,000 per day! The number of people who have opposed Clipper already exceeds the current estimated government orders for Clipper chips. Other upcoming milestones: 12,000 Number of computer networks connected to the Internet 15,000 Estimated number of total lawful wiretaps, 1968-1994 70,000 Anticipated number of Clipper purchases this year More details on the petition are re-printed below, just in case you haven't already forwarded a copy to every person and mailing list you know. ------------------------------------------------------------- [2] Safire Slams Clipper For those of you who might have missed it, William Safire published a very good essay on the Clipper proposal yesterday (February 14). We're providing some excerpts here and recommend the piece in its entirety. Let's hope Safire can do for Clipper what he did for Bobby Inman. Well-meaning law and intelligence officials, vainly seeking to maintain their vanishing ability to eavesdrop, have come up with a scheme that endangers the personal freedom of every American. * * * The "clipper chip" --- aptly named, as it clips the wings of individual liberty --- would encode, for Federal perusal whenever a judge rubber-stamped a warrant, everything we say on a phone, everything we write on a computer, every order we give to a shopping network or bank or 800 or 900 number, every electronic note we leave our spouses or dictate to our personal-digit-assistant genies. Add to that stack of intimate data the medical information derived from the national "health security card" Mr. Clinton proposes we all carry. Combine it with the travel, shopping and credit data available from all our plastic cards, along with psychological and student test scores. Throw in the confidential tax returns, sealed divorce proceedings, welfare records, field investigations for job applications, raw files and C.I.A. dossiers available to the Feds, and you have the individual citizen standing naked to the nosy bureaucrat. * * * The only people tap-able by American agents would be honest Americans --- or those crooked Americans dopey enough to buy American equipment with the pre-compromised American code. Subsequent laws to mandate the F.B.I. bug in every transmitter would be as effective as today's laws banning radar detectors. * * * Cash in your clipper chips, wiretappers: you can't detect the crime wave of the future with those old earphones on. --------------------------------------------------------------- [3] A Tough Question During the briefing on February 4 at which the formal adoption of the Escrowed Encryption Standard (aka Clipper) was announced, Mark Richards, Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, was asked the following hypothetical question: Suppose NSA goes to the key escrow agents and says, "We intercepted a Clipper-encrypted communication overseas. No U.S. persons were parties, so the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not apply and we don't need a warrant." How do the escrow agents determine whether or not to provide the keys? Doesn't this create a huge loophole in the system? Richards' response was that there would be "some" mechanism developed to ensure that there would be no abuse of the key escrow system, but added that any such procedures "might not be made public." The response was less than assuring. The development of secret procedures for foreign intelligence use of escrowed keys does nothing to assure the public of the system's integrity. It creates a very real possibility that the key escrow system will be based upon nothing more than NSA's unilateral representations concerning the circumstances of a particular interception. It was not at all apparent why these procedures couldn't be made public. Like so much of the Clipper proposal, valid concerns are met with the claim that "national security" precludes the disclosure of relevant information. This is why many of us believe this is a dangerous and ill-advised way to design our civilian communications infrastructure. --------------------------------------------------------------- [4] Clipper Facts: Definition of "Tesserea" The Defense Department reportedly plans to employ the Clipper technology in a device known as a "Tessera Card." We checked the dictionary and found the results to be kind of frightening: Terrerea n. Lat. (pl. tessereae). Literally, "four-cornered". Used to refer to four-legged tables, chairs, stools, etc. Also, a single piece of mosaic tile; a single piece of a mosaic. _Pol._: An identity chit or marker. Tessereae were forced on conquered peoples and domestic slaves by their Roman occupiers or owners. Slaves or Gauls who refused to accept a tesserea were branded or maimed as a form of identification.
From Starr's History of the Classical World and the Oxford Unabridged. (thanks to Clark Matthews)
---------------------------------------------------------------- [5] Sign the Clipper Petition! Electronic Petition to Oppose Clipper *Please Distribute Widely* On January 24, many of the nation's leading experts in cryptography and computer security wrote President Clinton and asked him to withdraw the Clipper proposal. The public response to the letter has been extremely favorable, including coverage in the New York Times and numerous computer and security trade magazines. Many people have expressed interest in adding their names to the letter. In response to these requests, CPSR is organizing an Internet petition drive to oppose the Clipper proposal. We will deliver the signed petition to the White House, complete with the names of all the people who oppose Clipper. To sign on to the letter, send a message to: Clipper.petition@cpsr.org with the message "I oppose Clipper" (no quotes) You will receive a return message confirming your vote. Please distribute this announcement so that others may also express their opposition to the Clipper proposal. ------------------------------------------------------------- [6] New Files at the CPSR Internet Library The following Clipper-related files are now available at the CPSR Internet Library: NIST Announcement of FIPS-185 (Escrowed Encryption Standard) /cpsr/privacy/crypto/clipper/fips_185_clipper_feb_1994.txt "Big Brother Inside" Postscript file parody of Intel's logo. Perfect for stickers, posters. Designed by Matt Thomlinson. /cpsr/privacy/crypto/clipper/big_brother_inside_sticker.ps All February 4 White House releases on Clipper are available at /cpsr/privacy/crypto/clipper An analysis of US cryptography policy by Professor Lance Hoffman commissioned by NIST /cpsr/privacy/crypto/hoffman_crypto_policy_1994 The CPSR Internet Library is a free service available via FTP/WAIS/Gopher/listserv from cpsr.org:/cpsr. Materials from Privacy International, the Taxpayers Assets Project and the Cypherpunks are also archived. For more information, contact ftp-admin@cpsr.org. ======================================================================= To subscribe to the Alert, send the message: "subscribe cpsr-announce <your name>" (without quotes or brackets) to listserv@cpsr.org. Back issues of the Alert are available at the CPSR Internet Library FTP/WAIS/Gopher cpsr.org /cpsr/alert Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility is a national, non-partisan, public-interest organization dedicated to understanding and directing the impact of computers on society. Founded in 1981, CPSR has 2000 members from all over the world and 22 chapters across the country. Our National Advisory Board includes a Nobel laureate and three winners of the Turing Award, the highest honor in computer science. Membership is open to everyone. For more information, please contact: cpsr@cpsr.org or visit the CPSR discussion conferences on The Well (well.sf.ca.us) or Mindvox (phantom.com). ------------------------ END CPSR Alert 3.04 -----------------------