Cypherpunks&Clipper in Scientific American

[hfinney@shell.portal.com]

In the Science and Business section, the August 1993 Scientific American
has a short, negative article on Clipper, which mentions cypherpunks:

Clipper Runs Aground

Everyone seems to be listening in these days: tabloids regale readers with
the cellular telephone intimacies of the British royal family, and more
sober articles on the business pages tell how companies - or governments -
devote resources to "signals intelligence" for commercial gain.  So the
Clinton Administration might have thought it was doing everyone a favor in
April when it proposed a new standard for encryption chips, developed with
the aid of none other than the National Security Agency (NSA).  

Instead the administration met with outrage.  Along with the message,
Clipper, as the chip is named, sends out a string of bits called a law
enforcement field.  Its purpose is to enable the police and the Federal
Bureau of Investigation to decode conversations that they wiretap pursuant
to court order.  In addition, the chip's encryption algorithm, known as
Skipjack, is classified.  Thus, only a small cadre of cryptographic experts
would be able to study it to determine whether or not it was indeed secure.

Early in June the administration abandoned its plan to rush Clipper into
the marketplace and extended its internal review of the policy issues
raised by the chip until the end of the summer.  This decision presumably
also delays consideration of outlawing other encoding methods.   

A peculiar coalition of civil libertarians and large software companies has
formed to plead the cause of unregulated cryptography.  Self-styled
"cypherpunks" argue that the government has no more right to insist on a
back door in secure telephones than it does to restrict the language or
vocabulary used in telephone conversations on the grounds that dialect
might hinder interpretation of wiretaps.  Companies such as Microsoft,
Lotus Development Corporation, Banker's Trust and Digital Equipment
Corporation are worried about the administration's proposal because they
believe it will hurt the U.S. in international competition.  

Ilene Rosenthal, general counsel at the Software Publishers Association,
which numbers 1,000 companies among its members, points out that telephones
containing the NSA chip would be subject to export controls because
cryptographic equipment is considered "munitions" under U.S. law.  This
bureaucratic restraint could force U.S. manufacturers of secure telephones
to develop entirely different product lines for the domestic and
international markets.  Indeed, she says, even if the State Department did
license Clipper for widespread export, it is doubtful whether any foreign
government or company would buy a system to which the U.S. literally had
the keys.   

Rosenthal contends that the U.S. has lost control of cryptography, citing
more than 100 different brands of strong encoding software sold by non-U.S.
companies.  Indeed, discussion groups on the Internet computer network have
been buzzing with plans for a do-it-yourself secure telephone that requires
little more than a personal computer, a $200 modem and a microphone.  

It is not clear whether the administration will abandon its attempt to
stuff the unregulated-cryptography genie back in the bottle.  There are
already 10,000 Clipper-equipped telephones on order for government use, and
Jan Kosko of the National Institute of Science and Technology says the plan
for the standard "is being advanced as fast as we can move it."  Nine (thus
far unidentified) cryptographers have been invited to review the algorithm,
and Kosko reports that decoding equipment is in the works for "law
enforcement and other government agencies that feel they need it."  The
Justice Department is busy evaluating proposals for the "key escrow agents"
that are supposed to prevent the police and the FBI from listening in on
conversations without a warrant.   

Some companies, however, are less concerned.  They hope for enormous sales
once privacy issues are resolved.  AT&T, for example, announced its
intention to sell Clipper-based telephone scramblers the same day that the
chip was made public.  "What the standard is," says spokesman David Arneke,
"is less important than having a standard that all manufacturers can build
to." 

- Paul Wallich