BIL_due

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

     22 April 1997:

     Space/intelligence technology's embattled frontier 

     European citizens and governments alike have expressed
     concern over the recent expansion of U.S. intelligence bases
     in Europe. The National Security Agency (NSA) and National
     Reconnaissance Office (NRO) are combining efforts at large
     sites known as regional SIGINT (signals intelligence)
     operation centers, or RSOCs. 

     At a recent Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.,
     NRO director Keith Hall said that the merging of the NSA and
     NRO bases is the first step in creating "collaborative systems
     of systems in signals intelligence." In the future, Hall said,
     those joint efforts could also include the U.S. Space
     Command, the service intelligence agencies and even
     commercial resources "borrowed" by the intelligence
     community. 

     U.S. military officials have been surprisingly candid about
     their intent to take maximum strategic advantage of their
     information trump cards. Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall 
     said, "Our allies must understand that we bring tremendous 
     capabilities to the table, and it would be to their advantage to 
     find ways we both can use [them]." 

     In a more blatant revelation of U.S. sentiment, Gen. Howell
     Estes, commander of the U.S. Space Command, said the
     United States "is the only nation intellectually prepared for and
     morally capable" of controlling space-based intelligence. 

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     President, Senators Set to clash on Encryption

     Bent on retaining access to any and all data exported from the
     United States, the Clinton administration soon will solidify its
     position on Internet security issues and have a bill sponsored
     in the Senate. 

     Meanwhile, microprocessing giant Intel Corp. of Santa Clara,
     Calif., which has been developing hardware-based encryption
     tools based on Cupertino, Calif.-based Hewlett-Packard's
     International Cryptography Framework, is sitting tight,
     waiting to see how things play out on Capitol Hill. 

     Intel already has submitted the framework for government
     review, but is closely guarding specifics about its encryption
     key lengths. 

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     SET 2.0 on the way - Encryption spec speeds e-commerce 

     "SET 2.0 will be security-algorithm-independent," said Steve
     Mott, senior vice president for electronic commerce at
     MasterCard International. "The issue is not the underlying
     cryptography, and the problem is not with RSA's
     mathematics; it's how efficient [RSA's cryptography] is." 

     Vendors such as Certicom, Apple Computer, and RPK are all
     positioning themselves as alternatives to market-leader RSA
     for providing encryption technologies. 

     "We have SET 1.0 pilots going with elliptic curve
     cryptography," Mott said. 

     Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC) is a technology that is
     being pushed by both Certicom and Apple.

     RPK, meanwhile, offers another alternative to encryption: Its
     Mixture Generator encryption engine performs both bulk and
     key encryption.

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     A Smart Partnership 

     Pretty Good Privacy Inc. and Schlumberger Electronic 
     Transactions are teaming up to integrate their encryption 
     and smart-card technologies. The two companies will interweave 
     PGP's encryption software with Schlumberger's Cryptoflex smart
     card, which supports functions such as key and digital
     certificate storage and signatures.

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     U.S. Seeks Laissez Faire on Internet 

     The Clinton administration plans to tell the Internal Revenue
     Service and bank regulators to forget about new rules for
     Internet commerce in a policy paper that is scheduled to be
     released later this spring, Ira Magaziner said last week. 

     It is unclear how far this laissez faire approach will go.
     Speaking at the same session, a top official in the Office of
     the U.S. Trade Representative warned about the obstacles he
     sees in trying to get other governments to go along. 
     He warned. "What do governments want to do? They want to
     regulate," he added. "It's ingrained to the system. It's almost a
     social-democratic ideal they want to fulfill." 


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     MITI to develop int'l electronic commerce technology 

     The ministry will formulate a standard for authentication
     centers that use different data-verification methods. The new
     protocol would facilitate the exchange of encryption data
     among authentication centers around the world, thus allowing
     a business to verify the identity of a client in another country.

     MITI, which has earmarked over 10 billion yen (about 79.82
     million dollars) for electronic commerce tests, is hoping to
     nurture Japan's own electronic commerce services and to
     narrow the technological gap with the U.S. 

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