Re: Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning

[sidney@taurus.apple.com (Sidney Markowitz)]

DEADBEAT <na5877@anon.penet.fi> says:

>If one's objective is to use SKIPJACK but to defeat key
>escrow, pre-encryption is easier, conceptually simpler, and may be more
>secure

Right now, you need to arrange things with another party if you are going
to have secure communication. If Clipper catches on the way the government
wants, you may be able to assume that someone you want to contact has an
encryption device compatible with yours. If Blaze's hack can be used by the
initiator of a communication to defeat key escrow without the cooperation
or knowledge of the other person, then Clipper will have made it more
difficult for law inforcement, since then criminals and other people with
privacy concerns will be able to have secure communication with people who
are not part of their pre-arranged secure communications system. That, the
defeat of traffic analysis, and the avoidance of the attention one could
draw by using non-LEAFed encrypted traffic, are the advantages of Blaze's
result.

 -- sidney <sidney@taurus.apple.com>