re: LEAF, SS7

[m5@vail.tivoli.com (Mike McNally)]

It may be that traffic analysis of Clipper conversations is a question
orthogonal to the switching system employed to establish circuits, but
the question remains: does the presence of LEAF blocks on circuits
simplify the task of traffic analysis?  Methinks it does, particularly
as the network gets more complicated.  

While it's tempting to think of this as a clever back-door way of
getting some of the FBI "tap-o-rama" proposals implemented, it's not
really interesting until nearly everybody is using a Clipper phone.

Consider this little flight of fancy:  what if, "in the interest of
the privacy of the subscribers", Clipper hardware is installed right
in each end-office switch?  Thus, every phone call is Clipper
encrypted as it passes through the network, even if I don't have a
Clipper phone.  It might even be that Clipper hardware could be
installed right at the network interface.  Isn't that nice, the phone
company is going out of its way to safeguard my privacy.  Only thing
is, now every circuit I establish is tagged by an LEAF that identifies
me...

Oh well, enough paranoia for now.

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