"Nothing can be made to be foolproof: fools are far too ingenious." -dave
Newsgroups: xpress.news.usa From: xpress (Associated Press) Date: 2 Jun 94 03:57:00 GMT X-Category: NA*N**** Subject: Times: Flaw Found In Wiretap
NEW YORK (AP)
A computer scientist has discovered a basic flaw in coding technology that the Clinton administration has been promoting as a standard for electronic communications, The New York Times reported Thursday.
Matthew Blaze, a researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, told the Times his research had shown that someone with sufficient computer skills can beat the government's technology by encoding messages so that no one, not even the government, can crack them.
The administration has been urging private industry to adopt the so-called "Clipper chip" as a standard encoding system. The government says telephone and computer messages sent with the chip cannot be read by an outsider but can be decoded by government law-enforcement agencies.
Officials fear that without such a system, wiretaps would be useless against criminals and terrorists because their communications could be hidden in unbreakable codes. But communications executives and privacy-rights experts fear the potential for snooping and worry that foreign customers wouldn't buy the equipment if Washington could snoop on it.
Blaze said the flaw he discovered in the Clipper design would not permit a third party to break a coded computer conversation. But it would enable two people to have a secret conversation that law enforcement officials could not unscramble.
Blaze said a draft report of his findings has been circulating among computer experts and federal agencies.
The National Security Agency, which played a leading role in developing the technology, does not dispute the flaw's existence, but believes the Clipper remains useful anyway, the Times said.
Michael A. Smith, the agency's director of planning, told the Times in a written response to questions that the flaw found by Blaze was difficult enough to exploit that most people wishing to circumvent the system would find other ways to do it.
Martin Hellman, a Stanford University expert on data encryption who has read Blaze's paper, said: "The government is fighting an uphill battle. ... People who want to work around Clipper will be able to do it."