Public Key Break Paper

[John Young]

Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

>As a meta-point any securirty person knows that employees and
>ex-employees are the most serious security risks. Its not exactly
>unknown for someone to go nuts and then come out with loony 
>paranoid theories.
>
>This may not be the case in this instance but its a good idea not
>to start seeing black helicopters around every corner...

"All cryptologists are rightly paranoid, they break the rules of the
game and lie to hide how it's done." -- Anonymous.

For what it's worth, it was Sandia who disclosed Payne's
public key break paper, not him. He's suing SNL for privacy 
violations.

His suit of DoE and NSA is about being fired for refusing to 
carry out illegal work which craven colleagues jumped to do.

William Payne could be the Bellwether of spilling the dark
national lab secrets unless, ahem, he gets his million
dollar settlement. I say good luck to him and the others
fighting the secret-hoaders.

Payne's dispute with Sandia and NSA shows once again how the
gatekeepers of top secrets manipulate those who work on
classified projects:

Lure the best and brightest with flattering invitations to
join prestigous secret work. 

Require high-penalty NDAs for participation.

Invite to work on repugnant projects, and if refused, fire
for insubordination or other pretext ("displeasing the
customer" or "to protect national security").

Then, destroy careers by precluding ever again working on
classified projects.

Finally, stigmatize the victim and publicize to frighten
other workers into subservience.

This entrapment into fearful servitude happens repeatedly in
high affairs of state: Oppenheimer, Snepp, McGee, Halperin,
and so on. There are dozens of current pending cases at DoE,
CIA, NSA and the like in the US, and many more in other
countries.

To be sure, wisely obedient government workers will never
have to cry "help me, my former colleagues are attacking, I
did nothing wrong."

Still, it seems that there must be ritual sacrifices of the
innocent, as Shirley Jackson wrote in "The Lottery," to
expatiate collective guilt, any innocent will do -- "for all
are equally guilty," so the gods and secret-keepers hyper-
guiltily smirk.

Who's next to exaptiate the guilt of the mega death national
and university labs? Surely not Hallam-Baker or Crisp?

Or, as Tim suggests, how about sacrificing the secret labs 
(and black-chip fabs)? There's a bill before Congress to
redo the NLs, but why dawdle when there's a surefire 
crypto-lottery.