Clipper Chip retreat

From tomorrow's NYT:


    type: NYT (Copyright 1994 The New York Times)
    priority: Urgent
    date: 07-20-94 2114EDT
    category: Financial
    subject: BC CLIPPER CHIP RETREAT
    title: ADMINISTRATION REVERSES ITSLEF ON WIRETAPPING TECHNOLOGY
    author:  JOHN MARKOFF
    text: 

	   In an abrupt and significant reversal, the Clinton
    administration indicated Wednesday that it was willing to consider
    alternatives to its Clipper chip wiretapping technology, which has
    been widely criticized by industry executives and privacy-rights
    groups.

    ...

I'll leave it to someone else to post the entire article, but the gist
is that Gore sent a letter to Maria Cantwell saying that the
administration is willing to consider alternatives to Clipper that are
based upon nonclassified algrithms, and where the escrow agents are
not government agencies.  They still insist on an escrow system,
however.

There's a quote from Marc Rotenberg saying that the escorw requirement
is still unacceptable.

> 	   In an abrupt and significant reversal, the Clinton
>     administration indicated Wednesday that it was willing to consider
>     alternatives to its Clipper chip wiretapping technology, which has
>     been widely criticized by industry executives and privacy-rights
>     groups.
> 
> I'll leave it to someone else to post the entire article, but the gist
> is that Gore sent a letter to Maria Cantwell saying that the
> administration is willing to consider alternatives to Clipper that are
> based upon nonclassified algrithms, and where the escrow agents are
> not government agencies.  They still insist on an escrow system,
> however.
> 
> There's a quote from Marc Rotenberg saying that the escorw requirement
> is still unacceptable.

The article implied that in exchange for this, the Cantwell amendment had
been scrapped. This was far more important, IMHO. The government never had
a chance to impose that silly chip. But threatening prison to people who
export crypto is extremelly painful to people trying to build businesses
based on things that use cryptography.

Has the government ever actually prosecuted somebody for exporting crypto
source code via the net? It seems like an interesting test case, and based
on the ruling about exporting applied cryptography, I would say that it was
permitted. (After all, our right to free speach involves the transmission
of ideas. I can understand them stopping the export of physical things
like computer disks, but not source code).

So does anybody actually know of a case in which the government attempted
to jail somebody for knowingly transmitting cryptographic programs from the
US?

JWS

>I'll leave it to someone else to post the entire article, but the gist
>is that Gore sent a letter to Maria Cantwell saying that the
>administration is willing to consider alternatives to Clipper that are
>based upon nonclassified algrithms, [...]

There are three of ways they could proceed from here.  The first is
to declassify SKIPJACK, which would (IMO anyway) be another welcome
boost for civilian crypto, in that it would be the chance to see
and analyse a NSA-designed cryptosystem.  For that very reason,
I doubt that they will do it.  (Small aside from another field: it will be 
_very_ interesting to compare the old SHA to the revised version.  One of
the reasons I suspect that the problem is quite significant is simply
because they have decided to revise it and run the risk of invoking
comparitive research which may disclose design techniques or methods
of attack.  If the later option is the lesser of two evils, I would
guess that it is a nasty hole indeed.)

The second would be to take an existing commercial cipher, and to
sanctify that as their recommended algorithm.  Again, assuming that
they selected a properly secure algorithm, the very features of the
algorithm they chose would be another point of interest.  This is
the least favorable option.

Their final option would be to release another cipher, but with a
reduced keysize or key entropy.  Not the best solution, but one
which I have a nasty suspicion will happen.

						Ian.