NODE dc249b33900 Mhz phones
analyst@netcom.com (Benjamin McLemore)Sat, 27 Nov 93 21:24:45 PST
Sorry about the mistake in my question. I had quickly read an article the other
day that left the idea in my mind that Cylink was one of the two producers of
the Clipper chip, actually quite the opposite is true:
>Cylink unveiled a civilian agency alternative
>to the Clinton Administration-advocated Clipper Chip and SKIPJACK
>algorithm for data communications security, saying it has begun
>shipping a product implementation of the Data Encryption Standard
>(DES) with an IC it claims will do instantaneous triple DES
>encryption.
Coupled with the article in the Economist about them also making the chip for
at least one digital cordless phone, my latent (but growing) paranoia
about the intentions of this government with respect to our privacy jumped to
the false (??) conlusions I implied in my question.
Any more info from anyone about which of these phones might be more or
less secure? What kind of algorithms would we really like to see
implemented for wireless communications? Who's doing it? (I think there
is a story about Qualcomm wanting stronger security for their CDMA digital
cellular standard but being forced to weaken or eliminate it due to
government(?) pressure--but that may be my paranoia again...)
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Benjamin McLemore
analyst@netcom.com
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NODE 77df527eRe: 900 Mhz phones
ferguson@icm1.icp.net (Paul Ferguson x2044)Sat, 27 Nov 93 21:44:19 PST
> Any more info from anyone about which of these phones might be more or
> less secure? What kind of algorithms would we really like to see
> implemented for wireless communications? Who's doing it? (I think there
> is a story about Qualcomm wanting stronger security for their CDMA digital
> cellular standard but being forced to weaken or eliminate it due to
> government(?) pressure--but that may be my paranoia again...)
No, its not your imagination, nor a case of over-active paranoia.
It's a fact that the FBI (among other three letter entities) have
previously asked cellular encryption developers to "scale back" their
implementations for ease of access to communications for law enforcement
purposes. In a word (or two), it bites.
The Digital Telephony proposal espoused mnay desired options which the
gummint couldn't previously weasel in earlier attempts to backdoor
communications.
- Paul