[I've cc:ed this note to one of the designers of KOM, Jacob Palme. Hi Jacob! -cwe] | Thanks to everyone who took the trouble to correct errors in my | notes from Saturday's Cypherpunks meeting. They were written | for my own benefit -- and for the benefit of some friends who | couldn't be there. Since I can give away information without | losing it (to misquote Thomas Jefferson), I'm happy to share it | with the cypherpunks. | | A comment from Matts Kallioniemi might be worth some further discussion: | | >>COM e-mail/bbs system (Sweden) -- operator could backup | >>e-mail, but not read it. | > | >Sure. The database was encrypted by using XOR with the string | >"KOM". That was the sorry state of encryption in the early eighties. | > | | Encrypting the database with a fixed string offers a good example | of how "locks keep honest people honest." This would prevent an | operator from unintentionally reading a message in case it was | revealed by, perhaps, a disk sector editor or crash dump. | | I suspect that the state of encryption in Sweden in the early | eighties was somewhat stronger than XOR (wasn't Hagelin a Swede who | moved to Switzerland to start Crypto AG?), but not necessarily | visible to the general public. | | The Swedish government has a rather strong tradition of protection | of individual privacy (encrypting COM e-mail is one example). | For example, the initial Swedish implementation of a national | criminal database in the mid 1970's (equivalent to the US NCIC) used | dialback telexes to prevent unauthorized (and untracked) access. | A recent newspaper article noted that some police officers were | being investigated for unauthorized access to the personal information | of a collegue who had complained of sexual harassment. | | Martin Minow | minow@apple.com | | | | | |