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RE: Announcement: RPK InvisiMail released on 12 Jan, 1998


It seems that there is some confusion WRT to the origin  of this product. 
 The encryption technology was developed in New Zealand.  The application 
itself was developed on the Isle of Man (British Isles).  As a result, the 
US gov't has had nothing to do with the product and therefore none of the 
"concerns" represented in the previous message have any merit.  What was 
meant by use of "honey" is that if you pick a fight with a government 
official, they will be happy to fight back.  If you complement them on 
their farsighted visionary non-meddling approach you get a very different 
response.  Our experience has been that we get a reasonable response from 
the NZ government that does not restrict the security that our products 
offer nor in the way that we choose to do business.

Jack

-----Original Message-----
From:	John Young [SMTP:[email protected]]
Sent:	Tuesday, January 27, 1998 4:02 PM
To:	[email protected]
Cc:	Jack Oswald
Subject:	RE: Announcement: RPK InvisiMail released on 12 Jan, 1998

On "using honey not vinegar" rationale of RPK InvisiMail for
obtaining crypto export licenses:

Applied Cryptography, Bruce Schneier, 2nd Edition, pp. 215-16

Algorithms for Export

Algorithms for export out of the United States must be approved
by the U.S. government (actually, by the NSA--see Section 25.1)
It is widely believed that these export-approved algorithms can
be broken by the NSA. Although no one has admitted this on the
record, these are some of the things the NSA is rumored to privately
suggest to companies wishing to export their cryptographic products:

  - Leak a key bit once in a while, embedded in the ciphertext.

  - "Dumb down" the effective key to something in the 30-bit range.
  For example, while the algorithm might accept a 100-bit key, most
  of those keys might be equivalent.

  - Use a fixed IV, or encrypt a fixed header at the beginning of
  each encrypted message. This facilitates a known-plaintext attack.

  - Generate a few random bytes, encrypt them with the key, and then
  put both the plaintext and the ciphertext of those random bytes at
  the beginning of the encrypted message. This also facilitates a
  known-plaintext attack.

NSA gets a copy of the source code, but the algorithm's details remain
secret from everyone else. Certainly no one advertises any of these
deliberate weaknesses, but beware if you buy a U.S. encryption product
that has been approved for export.

-----

Bruce added the last "beware" phrase to the 2nd edition.