Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning

[bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com +1-510-484-6204]

Perry writes:
> > However, it can be done in advance, and you can conceivably reuse
> > forged LEAFs.
> 
> I will point out something that I didn't quite understand myself but
> have since discussed with Matt Blaze in some detail -- LEAF checksums
> are tied to session keys. You CAN do this in advance but only if your
> key exchange will permit you to generate your session keys in advance, too
> Obviously, reusing forged LEAFs requires reusing session keys.

More precisely, as Steve's summary pointed out, it's tied to the IV,
which is tied to the session key.  (It makes sense - assuming the 
descriptions of the LEAF contents are true, the only session key
component in the LEAF itself is encrypted with the chip-unique backdoor key,
and tying it to the IV accomplishes key-dependence, though they could
also use the session key externally from the LEAF.)

Unfortunately, most Clipperphones will probably use Diffie-Hellman 
key exchange, since it reduces or eliminates the need for prearranged
public-key management (depending on whether they're using radio or
a medium that can be actively wiretapped), so precomputation will generally
not be usable.  I suppose some crude Diffie-Hellman implementations
might always use the same half-key for every conversation,
rather than generating a random one each time, and you could
precompute session keys for talking to them.

For email applications, however, most standards will probably use
sender-generated session keys, so it would be simple enough to
make secure Tessera mailers if you don't worry about 
subliminal channels in the hash.

		Bill