Gov't Report

[Mephisto]

 Thought that some of you might find this interesting...

						Mephisto
 **Forwarded Message**

To: rsaref-users at RSA.COM
From: KH3 at CU.NIH.GOV
Date:     Fri, 03 Dec 1993  16:11:53 EST
Subject:  New GAO report on Communications Privacy
Acknowledge-To:    KH3 at NIHCU.BITNET
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Sender: rsaref-users-request at RSA.COM

GAO recently issued a report "Communications Privacy:
Federal Policy and Actions", GAO/OSI-94-2, dated
November 4, 1993, that may be of interest to members
of your group.  The report focused on the following issues:

    - The need for information privacy in computer and
      communications systems--through such means as
      encryption, or conversion of clear text to an
      unreadable form--to mitigate the threat of economic
      espionage to U.S. industry;

    - federal agency authority to develop cryptographic
      standards for the protection of sensitive,
      unclassified information and the actions and policies
      of the National Security Agency (NSA), Department of
      Defense, and of the National Institute of Standards
      and Technology (NI ST), Department of Commerce,
      regarding the selection of  federal cryptographic
      standards;

    - roles, actions, and policies of NSA and the
      Department of State related to export controls for
      products with encryption capabilities and industry
      rationale for requesting liberalization of such
      controls; and

    - the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI)
      legislative proposal regarding telephone systems that
      use digital communications technology.

I have placed an electronic version of the report named
OSI-94-2.TXT in the GAO-REPORTS anonymous FTP directory at
NIH (ftp.cu.nih.gov).

Joe Sokalski, GAO--Los Angeles
              kh3 at cu.nih.gov

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