Seeking Clipper/Telephone Cost Estimates

I've been invited to revise my 3700 word article "Can Wiretaps Remain
Cost-Effective?" (which appeared in the CPSR Sourcebook on Cryptography,
July 1993) into a 2000 word Viewpoint article in CACM (the Communications
of the Association for Computing Machinery), to appear as soon as I'm ready.  

As a first year grad student, I haven't been keeping much track of
Clipper & Digital-Telephony stuff, and am now struggling to catch up.
If any cypherpunks could help, I'd be appreciative.

For example, my paper last year included the sentence 

  The current government contractor claims it will offer the wiretap chips
  for about $26 each in lots of 10,000 [2], over twice the $10 each a
  competing private developer claims it would charge [11] for a chip with
  comparable functionality, minus wiretap support.

as part of an attempt to estimate the direct costs imposed by the
"clipper" chip.  I recall seeing that they are now offering these
wiretap chips for $15 each, but can't seem to find the source for
that.  I'm also told the clipper chips are big VSLI chips, and too big
to fit into cellular phones which are the main current potential
market for encryption chips.  Can anyone offer more technically savvy
and up to date estimates of any of the added costs such wiretap chips
impose over other encryption chips?

The current Edwards/Leahy Digital Telephony Bill appears on the
surface to be a big step in the direction of this proposal from my paper:

  Regarding phone company support for wiretaps, it seems clear that if
  wiretaps are in fact cost-effective, there must be some price per wiretap
  so that police would be willing to pay for wiretaps, and phone companies
  would be willing to support them.  As long as the current law requiring
  police to pay phone company "expenses" is interpreted liberally enough, the
  market should provide wiretaps, if they are valuable.

But there are big differences in reality.  In this new bill,
1) the money to pay phone companies comes out of a different pot, so
police in the field can't really make tradeoffs between paying more
for wiretaps vs. more for other forms of investigation, and 
2) instead of a volentary transaction to ensure that costs are more
than benefits, "costs" reimbursed are estimated by some unclear legal 
process.

What do folks think of the following analogy?  We don't object to
police being able to pay willing informants, but we would certainly
object to requiring everyone to be an informant, even if we were paid
court-determined "costs" for our efforts.  Of better yet, consider
that we don't require companies that make guns, cars, or computers to
sell to the police at some court-determined "cost".

Robin Hanson  hanson@hss.caltech.edu
818-683-9153  2433 Oswego St., Pasadena, CA  91107   FAX: 818-405-9841
818-395-4093  Div. Hum. & Soc. Sci. 228-77 Caltech, Pasadena, CA 91125

Robin Hanson wrote:

> What do folks think of the following analogy?  We don't object to
> police being able to pay willing informants, but we would certainly

I strongly object to police using my tax money to pay stool-pigeons.
The possible benefits of this system are heavily outweighed by the
drawbacks (police fraud, false accusations, benefits for despicable
criminals).

(Even more revolting is the system of police enticing people to
commit crimes - stinges- and then prosecuting them. This seems to
be such an everyday occurence in the US but I have seen very little
opposition to it on the net. Can it be that growing up with such a
system makes it seem fair? Many USAns don't even seem to know that
such police tactics are forbidden in many European countries - and
crimes commited after such enticements certainly not prosecutable.)


Mats

>    Robin Hanson wrote:

>   > What do folks think of the following analogy?  We don't object to
>   > police being able to pay willing informants, but we would certainly

>   I strongly object to police using my tax money to pay stool-pigeons.
>   The possible benefits of this system are heavily outweighed by the
>   drawbacks (police fraud, false accusations, benefits for despicable
>   criminals).

>   (Even more revolting is the system of police enticing people to
>   commit crimes - stinges- and then prosecuting them. This seems to
>   be such an everyday occurence in the US but I have seen very little
>   opposition to it on the net. Can it be that growing up with such a
>   system makes it seem fair? Many USAns don't even seem to know that
>   such police tactics are forbidden in many European countries - and
>   crimes commited after such enticements certainly not prosecutable.)

it was forbidden in the US between the late 60's and the early 80's.

what is even more threatening than this is DARE and similar programs
that encourage people to nark on their friends and family.

josh

On Mon, 15 Aug 1994, joshua geller wrote:

> what is even more threatening than this is DARE and similar programs
> that encourage people to nark on their friends and family.
> 
> josh

Wasn't that how Hitler converted the youth of Nazi Germany?  Worked pretty
good (or pretty bad) too.

But the one that is *really* scary is groups of Priests/Pastors/etc.
advocating the murder of abortion clinic staff as "justifyable
homicide."

"First they came for the..."

-NetSurfer

#include standard.disclaimer

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
==  =    = |James D. Wilson        |V.PGP 2.4:   512/E12FCD 1994/03/17 >
 "  "    " |P. O. Box 15432        |     finger for full PGP key        >
 "  " /\ " |Honolulu, HI  96830    |====================================>
\"  "/  \" |Serendipitous Solutions|    Also NetSurfer@sersol.com      >
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

> what is even more threatening than this is DARE and similar programs
> that encourage people to nark on their friends and family.
> 
> josh

"My Daddy types strange things on his computer, and, like, I've heard
him talk about PGP."

"Thank you, Pavel, for reporting this. The Computer Authority is very
concerned about such unauthorized uses of computers. That's why we
have the CARE program in all 5th and 6th grade classes. Now, wait in
the Principal's office for the nice lady from Child Protective
Services to pick you up for your nice vacation."


--Klaus! von Future Prime

"Hey, it could happen!"

>   > what is even more threatening than this is DARE and similar programs
>   > that encourage people to nark on their friends and family.

>   "My Daddy types strange things on his computer, and, like, I've heard
>   him talk about PGP."

>   "Thank you, Pavel, for reporting this. The Computer Authority is very
>   concerned about such unauthorized uses of computers. That's why we
>   have the CARE program in all 5th and 6th grade classes. Now, wait in
>   the Principal's office for the nice lady from Child Protective
>   Services to pick you up for your nice vacation."

I fully expect that, barring some major change in current trends, in ten
years or less people will be leaving the US as refugees in search of
freedom in eastern europe.

I wish I was joking.

josh

At the HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth) conference, there were a
pair of AT&T 3600c telephone Surety devices on display & demo.  The
executive summary is that they sucked.  The docs do not mention
Clipper at all, but they do have an interesting disclaimer about how
AT&T has no responsibility if the government, or anyone else, taps
your phone.

	The device is $1300.00.  This means someone put up 2600 on a
credit card.  (The conference, organized by 2600 magazine, was much
amused.)  Each unit includes a 4800 baud feature rich modem, a clipper
chip (not marked as such), and some adapters to make it work with
various phone handsets.  The unit plugs in between the handset and the
phone base unit.

	The hackers who bought the things had quite a hard time
getting them to work at all.  There were troubles getting it set up so
that it would attempt to go into secure mode, and trouble getting it
to do so reliably once a pair of phones that worked were found.  AT&T
service blamed the problems on line noise, even though the folks
testing had a CO simulator, and were able to link V.fast modems
through it, and also link through the CO.

	To make the unit go into secure mode, one person pushes a red
button.  The unit sends touchtone 2587 (we wern't sure why; someone
suggested as a means of calibrating.  258 are in the same row on the
phone.)  Then the modems do their thing, making modem noises for about
20 seconds (your time may vary; AT&T manual said 10 seconds.)  Once
connected, the sound is very weak.  We in the conference had trouble
hearing when the earpiece was right next to a microphone.  There was
also a roughly quarter second delay (presumably this is for A/D
conversion + encryption) in talking.  This is a longish delay, roughly
equal to an overseas satellite conversation.

	Lastly, if you send a dtmf down while in secure mode, you
summon the clipper demon, which, we were told, sounds like something
out of the exorcist.  You also drop out of secure mode.  Useful to
know if demoing a clipper box.  :)

	I did not catch the name of the speaker who was doing the
demo.  A post to alt.hope.d would probably find the info.

	There were also two honest to god clipper chips sent by a nice
man at Mykrotronix.  (Thanks to John Droach(?)) One was kept as by the
guy who got them, the other was blown up with a small explosive device
to close the conference with a bang.

	They were quite small; maybe 1 cm square, and .5 cm thick.
Manufactured in the Phillipines, too. :)

	Anyway, thats my brain dump on clipper from HOPE.  There were
a fair number of cypherpunks there; anyone else want to offer
additions or corrections?

Adam

| For example, my paper last year included the sentence 
| 
|   The current government contractor claims it will offer the wiretap chips
|   for about $26 each in lots of 10,000 [2], over twice the $10 each a
|   competing private developer claims it would charge [11] for a chip with
|   comparable functionality, minus wiretap support.
| as part of an attempt to estimate the direct costs imposed by the
| "clipper" chip.  I recall seeing that they are now offering these
| wiretap chips for $15 each, but can't seem to find the source for
| that.  I'm also told the clipper chips are big VSLI chips, and too big
| to fit into cellular phones which are the main current potential
| market for encryption chips.  Can anyone offer more technically savvy
| and up to date estimates of any of the added costs such wiretap chips
| impose over other encryption chips?