---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 22:51:08 +0200 From: "[iso-8859-1] Bo Elkj�r" <bo.elkjaer@eb.dk> To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com Subject: Utimacos Safeguard Easy broken by danish police in tax evation ca se The german encryption program Safeguard Easy has been broken by the danish police. Today the police from the city Holstebro in Jutland presented evidence in court, that was provided after breaking the encryption on five out of sixteen computers that where seized april 25 this year. All 16 computers were protected with Safeguard Easy from the german encryption provider Utimaco. It is not known whether DES, 128-bit IDEA, Blowfish or Stealth was used as algorithm on the computers. All four algorithms are built in Safeguard Easy. Details are sparse. It is not known how the encryption was broken, whether it was brute forced or flaws in the program was exploited. The computers where seized from the humanitarian (leftwing) foundation Tvind (Humana) in connection with a case about tax evation. Among the evidence provided from the encrypted computers were emails sent among the leaders of the foundation, Poul Jorgensen and Mogens Amdi Petersen describing transfers of large sums of money. Apparantly, but not confirmed, british Scotland Yard has been involved in breaking the encryption. The danish police doesn't have the capacity to break encryption by themselves. Neither has the danish civilian intelligence service. Routine is that cases concerning encryption is handed over to the danish defence intelligence service DDIS. This procedure has been described earlier this year by the danish minister of justice in connection with another case. DDIS denies involvement with the Tvind case. Employees and leaders at Tvind has denied handing over their passwords to the computers. One even wrote a public letter mocking the chief of police in Holstebro, describing how he changed his password weekly, and stating that he'd probably even forgotten his password by now. At a time, the police concidered putting employees in custody until passwords were handed over. Thats all for now Bo Elkjaer, Denmark --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo@wasabisystems.com -- ____________________________________________________________________ natsugusa ya...tsuwamonodomo ga...yume no ato summer grass...those mighty warriors'...dream-tracks Matsuo Basho The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------