Jerry, I don't know if you saw this on its way through the office, but unless you have some objection, I'm going to invite this organization to join the Digital Privacy Working Group. There might be a lot of leverage gained from working the standards processes in the two countries against/with each other. I'm also interested in hearing if anyone in cypherpunks has heard of these folks or their product. FAX TRANSMISSION Date: 23 August, 1993 To: John P. Barlow Electronic Frontier Foundation Washington, DC, USA From: Anatoly N. Lebedev President LAN Cypto Moscow, Russia Phone/Fax: 095-936-7256 Subject: Digittal privacy working group Dear Mr. Barlow, I enjoyed your brilliant paper "Decrypting the Puzzle Palace" (Comm. ACM, vol.35, No.7, July 1992) very much. The situation with "the Russian NSA" or Federal Agency of the Government Communications and Information (FAGHI) is mostly the same as you describe there. So that I am in accord with the most parts of the paper. The company "LAN Crypto" is interested in becoming part of the digital privacy working group. "LAN Crypto" is the first Russian independent private company, which specializes in the development of information security systems and electronic documents transfer (electronic funds transfer, electronic checks, contracts, etc.) by means of cryptology. We have installed our software and the cryptological technology in more than 100 state and commercial banks in Russia, Belorussia and Kazakhstan. Our digital signature (we call it NOTARY) was recognized in April 1992 by the Suprime Arbitre Court of Russia. The first solution on electronic contract with our digital signature and conflict between the sides was made by the Moscow Arbitre Court 28 July 1993. NOTARY is a package of programs for electronic (digital) signing of PC files, revealing the identity of the author and assuring the integrity of such files. NOTARY employs advanced method of digital signing. The method is based upon the complex Discrete Logarithm Problem. NOTARY takes 0.2 sec for signing and 0.8 sec for checking the signature by AT-286/16MHz (secret key 512 bits). Now the works on national standard of digital signature in Russia also began. We work in this way actively with the other private companies and state organisations. We proposed to make the common standard for Russia and USA. This proposition was supported by the Information Technologies Department of the Russia State Committee of Standards. We've sent this proposal to the presidential team of the US President Mr. W. Clinton in Jan 1993. So I would be very glad to get from you any fresh information on DSS, because the last version we have gotten from our american partners was of Nov. 1992. We as a private company also propose some other packages of programs: VESTA (for encryption), which provides processing speed of 10 KBytes/sec on AT-286 (16MHz), ATHENA (for public-key generation), which takes less than 3 seconds for two users to generate a common secret key of 512 bits (using an AT-286 operating at 16MHz) (6.5 seconds for common key of 1024 bits), DIANA for strong and flexible access regulaton to files of databases. DIANA prevents an unauthorized access to information, contained in server or working station of LAN. It is based on encrypting of files and dynamic decrypting of them while working. All information between the server and the working station goes in an encrypted form. User of the working station uses a compact TSR-program. The key distribution system of DIANA does not have analoges in the world. To get more information on our programs you may connect with "LAN Crypto": 117630, Academician Chelomey St. 10-43, Moscow, Russia, phone/fax 095-936-7254 E-mail: lan@crypto.msk.su or with our representatives in the USA: Severtson and Associates 1901 Prytania, Suite 17 New Orleans, LA 70130 Phone 504/524-2256 or Dmitry Orlov San Francisco, CA 408/988-3832 E-mail: dimon@mcafee.com Regards, Anatoly N. Lebedev President LAN Crypto