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Re: anyone know what this "top secret" code does?
In your message dated Saturday 2, September 1995 :
> Does anyone remember the scenario someone suggested awhile back that
> hypothesized a scheme by the NSA or other TLAs to encourage the use
> of WEAK crypto? It involved spreading a lot of F.U.D. about PGP and
> other strong crypto methods, followed by the discovery/leak of a
> supposedly "strong" crypto algorithm to replace it.
If the YFTLA could diffuse actual source of a method *supposedly* stronger than
IDEA and get away with it, could they not equally qell get away with planting
their man Zimmermann and having him publish PGP with a cunning trapdoor? Let's
see, to lend cred to that though they'd probably have to have him arrested on
trumped-up charges and generally harassed ...
Many people only THINK they know what cynicism means.
Seriously: I've not been round long enough to have a good idea how likely my
proposed scenario is. You can all probably tell me things about Z's provenance
which blow my little theory sky-high.
cheers,
tim M.
--
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is very reasonable." -- Rousseau (roughly)
Tim Magee, e-mail: [email protected], tel: +44-1225-316785