Espionage-enabled Lotus notes.
I've come up with a new term to describe the type of 'improved' security in the new International edition of Lotus Notes: 'espionage-enabled' It's specifically built for export, and has a backdoor to enable USG agents to read the messages more easily. From the viewpoint of a foreign purchaser, 'espionage-enabled' seems an appropriate term. If we spread this term sufficiently, we may be able to discourage the widespread adoption of this half-measure, and increase the pressure for good, unencumbered crypto. speaking only for myself, Peter Trei ptrei@acm.org
I've been discussing the Lotus notes escrowed key reduction with some knowledgeable people. The first time I heard it suggested was by Adi Shamir at a talk by the deputy director of the NSA at MIT. The problem with this system is that it is quite likely to suceed. Unlike Clipper which made unfettered access to encrypted material possible the escrowed key strength reduction means that the FBI can tap a significant number of locations, just not all of them. It will be very hard to argue effectively against this idea in Congress. Much harder than the Clipper chip which was dead on arrival. Phill
An individual almost but not quite entirely unlike Richard Martin wrote:
They've forced a major company (they don't come much more major than IBM) to ship a product which actually helps them in both aspects of their mandate. Communications interception of foreign industries' groupware is now easier for the U.S. than for any other country, while (and this must be granted) the communications security of American industries will be somewhat improved by this move.
But how does this affect the use of Notes for US companies with foreign offices? If foreign offices are required to use the "export version" (which IS supposedly interoperable with the domestic version), then Notes use between a foreign office and US office will have a 40 bit key as far as the government is concerned. This assumption may be incorrect, but until I know what the effective key size is as seen by the government when the export and domestic versions communicate, I have to assume that the export version will have to dominate the effective key length. In other words, the domestic version will be able to handle and generate keys with the 24 government accesible bits, but naturally, keys generated by the domestic version will not be usable by the export version. Are US businesses willing to swallow this when the use is purely internal to the company? Does the national security argument hold up in this situation? This really does so little to improve the security situation that I can see why Mr. Ozzie is not comfortable with this compromise as anything but a short-term solution. I hope his statement is sincere. I'm asking a lot of questions at this point because my own opinions are not fully formed on all of the relevant issues. --- Paul M. Cardon System Officer - Capital Markets Systems First Chicago NBD Corporation (for whom I do not opine) MD5 (/dev/null) = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Jan 18, 11:38am, hallam@w3.org wrote:
The problem with this system is that it is quite likely to suceed. Unlike Clipper which made unfettered access to encrypted material possible the escrowed key strength reduction means that the FBI can tap a significant number of locations, just not all of them.
The Lotus `solution' seems to be the action of an American company shipping a product which effectively says to foreign users, "We don't care about you as a market." That this is the so-called "export" version is ironic. The keys are escrowed with the U.S. government, and no one else. The French government should rightly cry foul, for this is (a) encryption where they don't have the keys and (b) encryption where another government *does*. For the world where industrial espionage is supposed to be becoming the top priority and where there have already been ugly accusations among teams at trade talks, the NSA has just scored a victory on two fronts. They've forced a major company (they don't come much more major than IBM) to ship a product which actually helps them in both aspects of their mandate. Communications interception of foreign industries' groupware is now easier for the U.S. than for any other country, while (and this must be granted) the communications security of American industries will be somewhat improved by this move. This is a win for the NSA, whose mandate (much as their Canadian counterpart) would appear to read: We help you make sure that no-one can read your e-mail, except us. The sick thing is, Notes will probably *still* be the best choice, despite these matters (compared to competition from other similar software, and from the web). For all the `Notes is dead, long live the web' talk, the web as I've used it lacks authentication and access control beyond an all-or-none system. I'll go check w3.org again. richard - -- Richard Martin Alias|Wavefront - Toronto Office [Co-op Software Developer, Games Team] rmartin@aw.sgi.com/g4frodo@cdf.toronto.edu http://www.io.org/~samwise Trinity College UofT ChemPhysCompSci 9T7+PEY=9T8 Shad Valley Waterloo 1992 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMP6AYx1gtCYLvIJ1AQHd1gP9GkTInUub19NPVtIHARULq4g/ifCpMp4g P1U5FwtHrAfoDvgmwP275JUj/4zfJZ6p7YYnI10ihPD/Jjt6RmEmU/1D6N2XAeuc chr70nuWVpnUxUXhkSvhDcebDz/FejMAFx9ko3xIkQQDYYstsA+tJBadMPosC8Ec PEMPVbdfkRA= =zPD2 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
participants (4)
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hallam＠w3.org -
Paul M. Cardon -
Richard Martin -
Trei Family