Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On the one hand, I applaud Dr. Blaze for the discoveries based on his black-box analysis of the NSA product. How fortunate to have him working in a laboratory seeded with this gear. On the other hand, I am amused at the "big deal" being made about such a minor result. This "protocol failure" exposes the NSA product to no new threats. If one's objective is to use SKIPJACK but to defeat key escrow, pre-encryption is easier, conceptually simpler, and may be more secure, depending on what is actually inside the SKIPJACK code. I won't ask why the big deal is being made about all of this -- the agenda surrounding Clipper and friends is clearly a political one, not a technical one, so it is no surprise to hear even the technical voices, i.e., this list, trumpeting Blaze's paper as though it were a dagger in the heart of SKIPJACK. But let's all acknowledge the technical weight and importance of Blaze's result for what it is: minuscule. DEADBEAT <na5877@anon.penet.fi> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.4 iQBFAgUBLe9KWPFZTpBW/B35AQEbdwGAmBpl2lBCtLkPN4QBruEEKsstCWWpIEGm KMBK2YlxL5V9fnHRDn3RlRJT6Ji++7yd =gIHN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.
deadbeat wrote: | On the one hand, I applaud Dr. Blaze for the discoveries based on his | black-box analysis of the NSA product. How fortunate to have him | working in a laboratory seeded with this gear. | | On the other hand, I am amused at the "big deal" being made about such | a minor result. This "protocol failure" exposes the NSA product to no | new threats. If one's objective is to use SKIPJACK but to defeat key | escrow, pre-encryption is easier, conceptually simpler, and may be more | secure, depending on what is actually inside the SKIPJACK code. Actually, Blaze's work does nullify one important aspect of Clipper that pre-encryption does not address, and that is traffic analasis. Adam -- Adam Shostack adam@bwh.harvard.edu Politics. From the greek "poly," meaning many, and ticks, a small, annoying bloodsucker.
But let's all acknowledge the technical weight and importance of Blaze's result for what it is: minuscule.
I'd love to see Mr. Deadbeat try to produce a similar result some time. However, even beyond the raw intellectual achievement, Matt's result is Pretty Good technically. He showed a major flaw in the proposed escrowed encryption protocol that renders it pretty much valueless. Deadbeat misses the boat when he notes you can pre-encrypt -- with Matt's technique, I can actually interoperate with someone who isn't attempting to avoid escrow. I'd like to see Deadbeat explain how to manage that via any other method than the one proposed. Perry
participants (3)
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Adam Shostack -
an5877＠anon.penet.fi -
Perry E. Metzger