Naive RAND study...

["Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>]

At 7:08 PM -0800 10/27/96, Steve Schear wrote:
>I came across some interesting passages in the RAND Corp. study, An
>Exploration of Cyberspace Security R&D Investment Strategies for DARPA:
>"The Day After ... in Cyberspace II", MR-797-DARPA.

>Has this report been discussed on the list?

Not that I recall. From the excerpts you included, it looks very naive, in
the sense of being unsophisticated. And the "NSA is forbidden by law" point
is a real howler; obviously the authors are unaware of Bamford's book, not
to mention other confirmations of NSA domestic intercepts.

...
>However, the NSA is precluded by law from collecting information about U.S.
>citizens. When incidents of "information warfare" are being waged against

>Sponsor development of an aircraft-like "black box" recording device
>
>When a cyberspace security incident happens, it is often not detected in
>real time, and the trail back to the perpetrator becomes lost. Could a
>"black box" recording device be developed, to be attached to key nodes or
>links of cyberspace systems, that would record every transaction passing
>through that node or link during the last n minutes (where n=5 or 10, for
>example)? If so, that record would be invaluable in tracing the source of
>incidents, whether they are accidental or deliberately perpetrated.
>Thousands of such systems would be required to cover key links or nodes;
>could they be made robust, inexpensive, and ultra-reliable?

Sure, with "traffic escrow," all traffic will be escrowed. Of course, there
are just a few minor problems with the Constitution saying one has to
escrow what's on one's computers without a warrant, and with privacy issues
galore. And there the minor issue of storage of all of these terabytes of
data....

But if RAND wants to get on the bucks being doled out over this
"information warfare" hype, they've got to put some of their best and
brightest new college grads to writing papers like this.

--Tim May

"The government announcement is disastrous," said Jim Bidzos,.."We warned IBM
that the National Security Agency would try to twist their technology."
[NYT, 1996-10-02]
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1,257,787-1 | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."