Re: Black Eye for NSA, NIST, and Denning

[paul@poboy.b17c.ingr.com (Paul Robichaux)]

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Perry said:

> Clipper, Capstone, Tessera, etc, are, to my knowledge, interoperable
> implementations of the EES.

MYK-78 (or Clipper, not to be confused with the C400 Clipper in my
desktop machine) provides Skipjack encryption. Note that it does not
include any type of key exchange; the equipment designer is in charge
of that.

Capstone provides Skipjack encryption, plus DSS and SHA-based
signatures and D-H key exchange. The encryption is of course
interoperable with MYK-78 units, but I would guess that a
Capstone-based unit would need key-exchange code for each individual
class of MYK-78 device.

Tessera is Capstone packaged on a PCMCIA card for use with PCs and
computers. NSA and DoD intend Tessera cards to be issued to
individuals as authentication and encryption tokens.  _Network World_
reported in February that the initial Tessera beta testing would
include ~300 general officers from the US armed forces.  Plus Matt
Blaze :)

- -Paul

- -- 
Paul Robichaux, KD4JZG      | Out the 10Base-T port, through the router, 
perobich@ingr.com           | over the leased line, off the bridge, past
Intergraph Federal Systems  | the firewall... nothing but net.
	       Of course I don't speak for Intergraph.

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