weird (fwd)

[Tim May]

At 7:16 AM -0600 2/28/01, Jim Choate wrote:
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2001 22:23:04 -0800
>From: Jon Stevens <jon at latchkey.com>
>To: coderpunks at toad.com
>Subject: weird
>
><http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/02/27/fbi.spy/index.html>
>
>>  The comment came from a letter that FBI officials said was encrypted on a
>>  computer diskette found in a package -- taped and wrapped in a black plastic
>>  trash bag -- that Hanssen dropped underneath a foot bridge in a park in
>>  Northern Virginia, immediately before his arrest.
>>
>>  The FBI decrypted the letter and described it in an affidavit 
>>filed in support
>>  of its search warrant.
>
>
>#1. I wonder what was used to encrypt the letter and how they were able to
>decrypt it. Did he give them the password? Was the encryption weak (it would
>be funny if he had used DES)? Blah blah blah...

The FBI acknowledged that they'd done some black-bag jobs on Hanssen, 
including wiretaps and access to his computer.

Not surprising at all that they had access to both his private key, 
assuming he was using something like PGP, and his pass phrase, no 
matter what system he was using. Keyboard sniffers are easy to 
install.


--Tim May
-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns