News Flash: Clipper Bug?

Is this for real? Or did some future Nobel prize winner discover that PGP
exists?

        WIRETAP FLAW
        NEW YORK (AP) -- A computer scientist reportedly has discovered a
basic flaw in coding technology that the Clinton administration has
been promoting as a standard for electronic communications. Matthew
Blaze, a researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, told the New York
Times that his research had shown that someone with sufficient
computer skills can beat the government's technology by encoding
messages so that no one, not even the government, can crack them.
The administration has been urging private industry to adopt the
so-called ``Clipper chip'' as a standard encoding system.

> Matthew Blaze, a researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, told the New
> York Times that his research had shown that someone with sufficient
> computer skills can beat the government's technology by encoding
> messages so that no one, not even the government, can crack them.

Sounds like pre-encryption, after to the usual journalistic garbling.
Maybe not, I'll drop him a cc: (if I remember the address correctly).

   Eli   ebrandt@hmc.edu

Eli Brandt says:
> > Matthew Blaze, a researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, told the New
> > York Times that his research had shown that someone with sufficient
> > computer skills can beat the government's technology by encoding
> > messages so that no one, not even the government, can crack them.
> 
> Sounds like pre-encryption, after to the usual journalistic garbling.
> Maybe not, I'll drop him a cc: (if I remember the address correctly).

Its not pre-encryption. He's actually getting around the key escrow
features and using Skipjack in a secure manner. Its very slick.

Perry

-=Xenon=- says:
> Is this for real? Or did some future Nobel prize winner discover that PGP
> exists?

Thank you, Nik, for that insight.

My friend Matt Blaze at Bell Labs showed that you can forge LEAFs on
Tessera cards so that you can use Skipjack without anyone being able
to get the key you are using. Its a slick piece of work -- slick
enough that it made the front page of today's New York Times. I'm not
sure how practical it is, but its extraordinarily noteworthy.

Perry

> 
>         WIRETAP FLAW
>         NEW YORK (AP) -- A computer scientist reportedly has discovered a
> basic flaw in coding technology that the Clinton administration has
> been promoting as a standard for electronic communications. Matthew
> Blaze, a researcher at AT&T Bell Laboratories, told the New York
> Times that his research had shown that someone with sufficient
> computer skills can beat the government's technology by encoding
> messages so that no one, not even the government, can crack them.
> The administration has been urging private industry to adopt the
> so-called ``Clipper chip'' as a standard encoding system.