On Fri, 11 Mar 1994, Greg - Kucharo wrote:
"Im in for triple murder,how about you? I got 40 years for telling the Swedes about RSA so don't screw with me pal!Crypto huh,your one sick con."
There has still been zero in the Swedish public media about Clipper. I have introduced the subject in the national Fido echo about datacomm, including the unconfirmed information that .se (together with .uk) is one of the first external countries to apply for a KF. (Swedish Fidonet sysops seem to long for CALLER-ID, which has been postponed here for reasons of privacy, to keep track of their users. Wouldn't this also be beneficial for traffic analysis?) Cryptology in Sweden is probably centerer to the Forsvarets Radioanstalt ('Radio Agency of the Defense') which is as secretive about it's methods as any letter agency. Not until recently did it become known that they compromised the German G-printer during WWII. The teleprinter lines between occupied Norway and Denmark went through Sweden and the traffic was encrypted with this Enigma-like machine (I don't know exactly but it had about ten wheels that had to match in adjustment plus an extra level consisting of cables from the wheelhouse that could be set differently to twist the output). The crack was done all by himself by one legendary genius called Beurling using only pencil and paper. It took him two weeks from the day they picked him up at the university (mathematician of course). After the war he took the former seat of Einstein at the Princeton University but fell into obscurity (allegedly he had serious personal problems). Regardless of being neutral the Swedish Defence has cooperated with USA in covering the Russian's radio traffic from the 40's until now. I'm sure they got something back (more than RSA which is in the public domain). At the moment I have some probes out to laywers to establish the status of the Swedish cryptology laws (if any). A curiosity: The electromagnetic spectrum is considered free here, contrary to most European countries, meaning for example that pirate decoders for TV sattelite transmissions are legal. This will probably change when Sweden, unfortunately, soon enters the European Community. //mb