At 09:12 1994/07/13 +1000, Ian Farquhar wrote: ... Quoting someone else
BTW, the algorithm leaked, it was not reverse engineered. I do not expect SKIPJACK to leak, as it's distribution would be VERY limited, even within the NSA and chip houses. Even A5 was reputed to be known to only 2 or 3 people within Motorola.
... How many have access to the masks?
Assuming you're asking about the masks for the chips that implement Skipjack (Clipper and Capstone), probably lots of people. The masks themeselves aren't classified (but are covered by standard trade secret law). But the masks alone won't help much. According to NSA, "part of the algorithm", probably including the configuration tables for the S-boxes, is burned in to the chips in the secure vault during the classified escrow programming session. See my February comp.risks post, "Notes on Key Escrow Meeting with NSA", for more details. (I think it's available somewhere in the ftp.eff.org archive.) If you're asking about A5 then I have no idea. -matt