From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com> Date: Thu, 7 Sep 1995 20:55:49 -0400

Note 1: It was Michael Nelson of the White House who said that the reason to maintain the 64-bit limit for export was because the key escrow methodology had not yet been proven reliable and that the security agencies insisted on the relatively weak system in case key escrow failed.

Clint Brooks of NSA repeated this assertion, at least once. He said it during the August 17, 1995 meeting as well. I find this interesting, not least as a violation of security. This amounts to an open declaration that NSA can break through 64-bit keys. Could it be that NSA was miffed at being upstaged in the announcement of breaking through a 40-bit key and wanted to up the ante? .... :-) - Carl +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Carl M. Ellison cme@acm.org http://www.clark.net/pub/cme/home.html | |PGP: E0414C79B5AF36750217BC1A57386478 & 61E2DE7FCB9D7984E9C8048BA63221A2 | | ``Officer, officer, arrest that man! He's whistling a dirty song.'' | +----------------------------------------------------------- Jean Ellison -+