FWD: International Encryption Protocols

[Weld Pond]

To: "Frank O'Dwyer" <fod at fws.ilo.dec.com>
cc: firewalls at GreatCircle.COM (Firewalls Mailing List)
From: Justin Mason <jmason at iona.ie>
Subject: BoS: Re: International 
Encryption Protocols 

Frank O'Dwyer sez:

>After all, if the CoCom countries _weren't_ willing to sell each other 
>crypto equipment, how could they spy on one another?  :-)
>
>(Actually the :-) may not be necessary - I believe there was a story
> in the news recently about the UK 'authorities' snooping on Irish
> official traffic carried on UK-supplied equipment.)

Almost right -- it was the UK surveillance service (GCHQ) snooping on
Irish official traffic carried on US-supplied crypto equipment.
Apparently, the equipment in question had a "back door", courtesy of
the NSA; when GCHQ found out that the Irish govt were using this
equipment, they had only to ask their NSA pals for the details.

I only heard the details myself via a popular-science program on crypto
;), so the so-called back door may not have been a deliberately
weakened algorithm, it may have been a set of keys from an key-escrow
repository or some such.

--j.

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