Wall Street Journal, Jan 18, 1996
IBM Compromises on Encryption Keys, U.S. Allows Export of More-Secure Notes [...] The new overseas version of Notes, tagged Release 4, will give foreign users 64-bit security. But to get permission to export the software, Lotus agreed to give the government access to 24 of those bits by using a special 24-bit key supplied by the ^ National Security Agency. [...]
Does anyone know if there really is just one 24-bit key for every copy of Lotus Notes or is this a miscommunication? If there really is just one 24-bit key for everyone, can't you just look for the bits that don't change among different 64 bit keys? (e.g. AND a "sufficiently large" number of 64-bit keys together to find the 1's that don't change and then OR them to find the 0's until you've got the 24 bit key). Someone, please tell me that's not how it works (or post the 24-bit key :>). | (Douglas) Hofstadter's Law: Frank Stuart | It always takes longer than you expect, even fstuart@vetmed.auburn.edu | when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.