ITAR vs. Diffie-Hellman Key Exchange?

In the discussions about people sniffing the net and the need for encrypted
telnets, one problem that has come up is the ITAR hassles that make exporting
Kerberos politically incorrect, though John Gilmore has gotten them
to admit that the Kerberos bones is none of their businesss :-)

However, is Diffie-Hellman exportable?   After all, it's not crypto,
it's *just* key exchange, and people can plug in their own triple-DES
from the usual sources.  It looks to me like it's probably legal,
though if you were to then transmit the password by XORing with the login
key or some such probably-unsafe behaviour it might not be.

I had heard somebody say there would be an updated RSAREF version including
Diffie-Hellman key exchange, though it's not in the package I just
ftp'd from rsa.com.  Is this correct, and is there a planned release date?

		Thanks;  Bill 
# Bill Stewart  AT&T Global Information Solutions, aka NCR Corp
# 6870 Koll Center Parkway, Pleasanton CA, 94566 Phone 1-510-484-6204 fax-6399
# email bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com billstewart@attmail.com
# ViaCrypt PGP Key IDs 384/C2AFCD 1024/9D6465

Full Kerberos, with DES, *is* available outside the US.  The US allows
export of cryptographic *binaries* for authentication purposes.  For
example, it is possible to get DECathena, which contains Kerberos with
DES, which is compatible with MIT Kerberos.  It even contains
libraries, but not the functions to encrypt data for privacy, just
enough to create checksummed messages.  Its just that the SOURCE code
is not available, but it is fairly simple to generate an exportable
binary suite.

I doubt DH is exportable, since it is key exchange, which in general
is not exportable.  Jim, care to comment?

Yes, there is a version of RSAREF w/ DH included (I have a beta-test
version, although I haven't played with it a lot).  I don't know when
this will be released to the world.

-derek

> Full Kerberos, with DES, *is* available outside the US.  The US allows
> export of cryptographic *binaries* for authentication purposes.  For
> example, it is possible to get DECathena, which contains Kerberos with
> DES, which is compatible with MIT Kerberos.  It even contains
> libraries, but not the functions to encrypt data for privacy, just
> enough to create checksummed messages.  Its just that the SOURCE code
> is not available, but it is fairly simple to generate an exportable
> binary suite.
> 
> I doubt DH is exportable, since it is key exchange, which in general
> is not exportable.  Jim, care to comment?
> 
> Yes, there is a version of RSAREF w/ DH included (I have a beta-test
> version, although I haven't played with it a lot).  I don't know when
> this will be released to the world.

Where can I get a copy of this, or just the patches to patch RSAREF?  Or
even D-H itself would be nice - I'd like to hack together an encrypted
telnet/rlogin suite for use when I'm on the road, so I can get into my
system at the house from the laptop and not have to worry about someone
snarfing my login/password combo...

I've got RSAREF, BTW ... haven't looked at it much, though...
-- 
Ed Carp, N7EKG			ecarp@netcom.com		510/659-9560

"What's the sense of trying hard to find your dreams without someone to share
it with, tell me, what does it mean?"        -- Whitney Houston, "Run To You"

# From: wcs@anchor.ho.att.com (bill.stewart@pleasantonca.ncr.com 
# 
# However, is Diffie-Hellman exportable?   After all, it's not crypto,
# it's *just* key exchange,

For that matter, the trivial use of the Dining Cryptographers algorithm
really doesn't involve anything I consider True Crypto: it's just
coin flips and xors -- more of an "encoding" than an "encryption".
Notice there is no encryption/decryption key.  As in DH, the information
emerges in the end if you follow the protocol.  
 
# be an updated RSAREF version including Diffie-Hellman key exchange, 

Try writing to burt@rsa.com and asking for it.  They sent it to me.   strick

> However, is Diffie-Hellman exportable?   After all, it's not crypto,
> it's *just* key exchange, and people can plug in their own triple-DES
> from the usual sources.  It looks to me like it's probably legal,
> though if you were to then transmit the password by XORing with the login
> key or some such probably-unsafe behaviour it might not be.

I think the export restrictions refer to "secret messaging".  DH
creates a shared secret.  I doubt it can be exported.


brad