At 20:10 12.13.1995 CST, Loren James Rittle wrote:
If it could be shown that Clipper chips require a fixed amount of time/current to encode/decode traffic, then we could conclude one of the following:
(B1) The NSA knew about the issue and compensated for it. (B2) The NSA didn't know about the issue and got lucky.
I discount B2 as a valid option. Actually, if the answer was B1, my respect for the NSA would creep up a notch. :-)
Remember those carefully-chosen S-box numbers for DES and how, years later, how they just happened to turn out to be optimal for defending against the newly-discovered (in non-military circles) technique of differential cryptanalysis... :-) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Herb Sutter (herbs@connobj.com) Connected Object Solutions 2228 Urwin - Suite 102 voice 416-618-0184 http://www.connobj.com/ Oakville ON Canada L6L 2T2 fax 905-847-6019