Re: Government fear of strong crypto

[Jim McCoy <mccoy@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>]

> From: "Pat Farrell" <pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu>
[...]
> 
> The "government" as a whole is not against crypto. The NSA is _very
> strongly_ against it. There are 60,000 or more bureaucrats in NSA that would
> be effectively put out of work by widespread strong crypto.

Hmmm..... actually I must disagree with this.  The NSA may oppose strong
crypto, but a few facts should be brought up:

	1)  The NSA is not chartered for domestic surveillance work.  If
	    you discover the NSA watching you within the US you can have
	    them arrested.  They are probably more interested in the
	    systems being put in use around the world and less about
	    systems internal to the U.S.

	2)  The NSA has been dealing with strong cryptography for a long
	    time.  These are the people who have been playing crypto games
	    with "the Ruskies" since before I was born.  I sincerely doubt
	    they are losing a great deal of sleep over the fate of Clipper.

They may have an interest in promoting relatively weak cryptography that
will be exported and may actually favor weak crypto at home (hoping for the
Beta v. VHS effect to spread this weak crypto from the U.S. to the rest of
the world) but no one at Fort Meade is going to be getting a pink slip if
Clipper goes down in flames.

The FBI, and other domestic law enforcement agencies are probably very gung
ho for weak crypto, but I just don't think that No Such Agency is going to
be greatly effected by it.  Thier fingerprints are all over the Clpper
stuff, but seeing as how thier other mission is to develop ciphers this is
only natural.

Just a little thought late at night...

jim



> 
> I believe that the FBI and other more public agencies are simply shills for
> NSA. The many posting about real wiretap usage and costs simply can't
> support taking all the heat last year of Digital Telophony and this year
> over Clipper, esp. when they admit that smart crooks wouldn't bother to use
> Clipper.
> 
> BTW, I talked to Dorothy Denning at the conference. She says that it is now
> called the "Key escrow chip" because of Intergraph's trademark on Clipper.
> I'll post more on my conversations with DE Denning later.
> 
> Pat
> 
> Pat Farrell      Grad Student                 pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu
> Department of Computer Science    George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
> Public key availble via finger          #include <standard.disclaimer>
>