Brought to without permission of anyone in authority. InfoWorld August 2,1993 Section: To the Editor (pg.54) _Big Brother's encryption_ In his Peer to Peer essay on the Clipper data encryption chip (see "Clipper chip won't clip your wings, it will just protect the unprotected," June 21, page 55), A. Padgett Peterson contends that "the government has more to lose by being exposed to world ridicule from a trapdoor or backdoor than it can hope to gain." My direct experience with the National Security Agency indicates otherwise. At the 1981 fall Comdex, Epic computer Corp. unveiled Kryptyk, the only commerical E-mail crypto package for CP/M computers. My software team and I had implemented the first RSA public key cryptosystem for microprocessors. Our booth was swamped with managers from the Fortune 500 and many international firms. Our ecstasy was still strong when a week later we were visited by the NSA. I proudly explained that we could not inject a trapdoor function -- that cracking the algorithm was computationally infeasible, even with the then- recent advances of prime number theory in France. Within a month we received a letter from the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms the proclaimed our product was "strategic munition" and could not be sold either to multinational companies nor outside the continental United States -- a heavy penalty for not allowing a trapdoor. And we should believe that NIST and NSA did not boobytrap the Clipper chip? I agree with Mr. Peterson that "security by obscurity just does not work." Remember Watergate? Teh Warren Commission's magic-bullet findings? But as long as governments are the only people who can depend on having secrets, they will always view their citizenry as fools to be manipulated. And when governments sanction data security, rest assured they can freely "E-avesdrop" Steven Fisher, CDP Controlled Information Environments Compuserve: 71750,3203 All spelling mistakes my own. Paul -- R O All Comments Copyright by | Technofetisht A N Paul S. Goggin (1993) | Cypher, Cyber, Chaos V Information Broker | Ergoflux, Interzone E chaos@aql.gatech.edu | Carpe Diem: Stop the Clipper wiretap chip Finger account for latest _Phrack_ | Public Key: PGP and RIPEM available For anonymous communication:---> anonymus+4744@charcoal.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Title 18 USC 2511 and 18 USC 2703 Protected -- Monitoring Absolutely Forbidden