TIS, SKE, & CyberCash Inc.

John Young <jya@pipeline.com> wrote:

> Peter Wayner writes in October BYTE on electronic documents in
> business.
>
> Admirably covers encryption, digital signatures,
> authentication, digital cash, timestamps and more.
>
> See "EDI Moves the Data", pp.121-128.
>
> The issue has some other mentions of crypto.


Also worthwhile is the article on page 40 which discusses Trusted
Information Systems' software-key escrow proposal.  After seeing it
I decided to hunt down the TIS Software Key Escrow paper at
ftp://ftp.tis.com/pub/crypto/ske.  It makes for interesting
reading	on the kinder, gentler, sugar-coated incarnation of key
escrow that we're likely to be seeing more of.  Sugar-coated or not,
it still has poison inside.

TIS's proposal is even more noteworthy considering their affiliation
with the CyberCash Inc. venture written about in the 09/13/94 WSJ
article posted here several days ago (ie. $whois cybercash.com = TIS).
So, one of the leading proposals for SKE comes from a company
involved with one of the leading digicash ventures.  It looks like
TIS is a company to watch.

The TIS SKE paper asserts that:

	"Key escrow cryptography has been a controversial topic since
	 it was proposed in 1993.  We believe that it is most likely
	 to be accepted for use outside of government if it is
	 authorized by legislation that sets forth the circumstances
	 under which keys may be released and the sanctions for abuse
	 of the escrow process"
	

Well, hell will freeze over before it is accepted by this citizen.
Those who have seen how RICO and the Forfeiture Law have run
amok in this country have no reason to feel sanguine about the
potential future abuses of key escrow.  I don't expect the statutory
limitations on its misuse to be any more reliable than the search
and seizure limitations or due process requirements of the Forth and
Fifth Amendments which have been vitiated over the past decade or so.
And the prospect that the surveillance state infrastructure which the
Friends of Big Brother (FOBBs) are trying to put into place today
will be available for potentially more tyrannical leaders that may 
appear in the future, even more inimical to liberty, privacy and 
personal sovereignty than the current ones, is not a comforting thought.



-Michael

Michael Pierson wrote:

> TIS's proposal is even more noteworthy considering their affiliation
> with the CyberCash Inc. venture written about in the 09/13/94 WSJ
> article posted here several days ago (ie. $whois cybercash.com = TIS).
> So, one of the leading proposals for SKE comes from a company
> involved with one of the leading digicash ventures.  It looks like
> TIS is a company to watch.

I agree that this is a crucial development to watch. Two related (I
think) developments:

- Al Gore writes a guest editorial in the latest "Discover" magazine.
His theme: an expansion of the "National Information Infrastructure"
he calls the "Global Information Infrastructure." The New World Order
in cyberspace. Wanna bet that this GII will have passports,
authorization slips, tax collection capabilities, and is-a-person
credentials?

- The latest "Internet World" (Oct. '94, p. 11) confirms that
Microsoft is building Internet connectivity into upcoming releases of
Windows and Windows NT. Given their known involvement in SKE/GAK
(confirmed to me in e-mail, and reported here on this list a few
months back), this "Microsoft said it will build in suppport for those
protocols in the next versions of Windows and Windows NT" statement
bears close watching.

(The scenario I think is likely: SKE is put in at the OS level,
perhaps with these SLIP/PPP/TCP-IP protocols. Ostensibly "voluntary,"
it actually won't be, because selection of "escrow agents" will be
from a list of approved entities. A *truly* voluntary system would
allow complete bypassing, or selection of a "bit bucket" as the escrow
agent. Fat chance.)

(TIS statemen on SKE elided.)

> Well, hell will freeze over before it is accepted by this citizen.
> Those who have seen how RICO and the Forfeiture Law have run
> amok in this country have no reason to feel sanguine about the
> potential future abuses of key escrow.  I don't expect the statutory
> limitations on its misuse to be any more reliable than the search
> and seizure limitations or due process requirements of the Forth and
> Fifth Amendments which have been vitiated over the past decade or so.
> And the prospect that the surveillance state infrastructure which the
> Friends of Big Brother (FOBBs) are trying to put into place today
> will be available for potentially more tyrannical leaders that may 
> appear in the future, even more inimical to liberty, privacy and 
> personal sovereignty than the current ones, is not a comforting thought.

Agreed. We need to watch carefully this one.

A "voluntary" software key escrow system is of course OK (useful for
people afraid of forgetting their keys, for companies that don't want
the death of employees to cut them off from corporate secrets, etc.).
But any system in which the escrow key holders are *not* freely
selectable from a list one generates one's self (where the agents may
be the company lawyer, one's mother, one's priest, the bit bucket, the
machine down the hall, or nothing at all, etc.) is *not voluntary*.

The recent conference on international use of crypto, noted by other
recenly and by several of us back in July, had an ominous agenda. Did
any of you attend?

I get the feeling that wheels are turning, that deals are being cut.

And given the EFF's recent sell-out on Digital Telephony (which is of
course related to this, especially since the OS makers like Microsoft
and Apple are negotiating deals with the cable-telco companies, thus
presumably making the OS makers partners in the "wiretapping"
requirements), I would not be surprised to see similar deals being
arranged behind the scenes.

Much as I fear direct democracy, I also fear this kind of
smoke-filled room trading away of our liberties.

Wiretap bills, Software Key Escrow, Government Access to Keys,
information superhighways, Data Cops...it's all getting pretty
worrisome.

--Tim May

-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
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Timothy C. May says:
> (The scenario I think is likely: SKE is put in at the OS level,
> perhaps with these SLIP/PPP/TCP-IP protocols. Ostensibly "voluntary,"
> it actually won't be, because selection of "escrow agents" will be
> from a list of approved entities. A *truly* voluntary system would
> allow complete bypassing, or selection of a "bit bucket" as the escrow
> agent. Fat chance.)

They can build what they like, Tim. The protocols being defined right
now by the IETF do not include provisions for escrow. Thus far, no one
from the NSA, or even TIS, has come up to me and said that I should
change the draft RFCs that I am writing. Any such OS support for SKE
in Microsoft software would not be interoperable with anyone else's
software. Since the bulk of the internet does not run on Microsoft
platforms, and since Microsoft doesn't sell things like routers and
the like, even Microsoft has to interoperate if they want their
packets to move past the local ethernet.

Perry

Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> They can build what they like, Tim. The protocols being defined right
> now by the IETF do not include provisions for escrow. Thus far, no one
> from the NSA, or even TIS, has come up to me and said that I should
> change the draft RFCs that I am writing. Any such OS support for SKE
> in Microsoft software would not be interoperable with anyone else's
> software. Since the bulk of the internet does not run on Microsoft
> platforms, and since Microsoft doesn't sell things like routers and
> the like, even Microsoft has to interoperate if they want their
> packets to move past the local ethernet.

Good! I'm glad to hear that such developments make a "takeover" of
Internet protocols less likely. 

(Even better might be a heavy international involvement, with folks
from countries that are not malleable and controllable by the New
World Order Task Force.)

Despite my periodic alarms, I'm pretty optimistic about our chances
for escaping the "Big Brother Inside" future--my Cyphernomicon should
make this optimism clear.

Although I'm an admitted extremist in my views, I do try to steer
clear of the two extremes:

Extreme 1: It's all over. Big Brother is here. Give up.

Extreme 2: We've already won. It's all over. They can do nothing to us.

I think we're somewhere in between, with some frightening laws on the
horizon (look at the War on Drugs, civil forfeiture, tax laws,
currency reporting requirements, health care proposals, etc.), but
also with some new "degrees of freedom" that make control very
difficult.

The war isn't over yet.

--Tim May


-- 
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May         | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,  
tcmay@netcom.com       | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409           | knowledge, reputations, information markets, 
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA  | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: 
subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tcmay

Timothy C. May <tcmay@netcom.com> wrote:
					    
> A "voluntary" software key escrow system is of course OK (useful for
> people afraid of forgetting their keys, for companies that don't want
> the death of employees to cut them off from corporate secrets, etc.).
> But any system in which the escrow key holders are *not* freely
> selectable from a list one generates one's self (where the agents may
> be the company lawyer, one's mother, one's priest, the bit bucket, the
> machine down the hall, or nothing at all, etc.) is *not voluntary*.


Of course the State's current interest has little to do with these 
legitimate issues. All the government rhetoric about "voluntary" 
encryption standards is a smokescreen. I believe those who don't want
to eventually see government *dictated* key escrow, and the outlawing 
of alternatives should not let themselves be lulled by it.  

A case in point is Tony Clark's draft legislation proposal for the
"Encryption Standards and Procedures Act" from the House Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology.  In the preamble we have the sole
reassuring mention of "voluntary":


	"To amend the National Institute of Standards and Technology 
	 Act to provide for the establishment and management of 
	 voluntary encryption standards to protect the privacy and 
	 security of electronic information, and for other purposes."

	 
Then in the Findings and Purposes section it starts to get at the
crux of the real agenda:


	"(2) The proliferation of communications and information
	 technology has made it increasingly difficult for the 
	 government to obtain and interpret, in a timely manner,
	 electronic information that is necessary to provide for
	 public safety and national security."
	 

This primary agenda is restated in the Requirements subsection 
under Federal Encryption Standards:


	"(C) shall contribute to public safety and national security;
	
	 (E) shall preserve the functional ability of the government
	 to interpret, in a timely manner, electronic information 
	 that has been obtained pursuant to an electronic surveillance
	 permitted by law;
	 
	 (F) may be implemented in software, firmware, hardware, or
	 any combination thereof; and
	     
	 (G) shall include a validation program to determine the 
	 extent to which such standards have been implemented in
	 conformance with the requirements set forth in this paragraph."
	  

Later on, in the Definitions section, the term "electronic
information" for the purposes of the legislation is defined in what
I find to be an ominously expansive way:


	"(8) The term 'electronic information' means the content,
     source, or destination of any information in any electronic
     form and in any medium which has not been specifically 
     authorized by a Federal statute or an Executive Order to be
     kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign
     policy and which is stored, processed, transmitted or 
     otherwise communicated, domestically or internationally, in
     an electronic communications system..."



What does "voluntary" really mean in the context of the repeatedly
stated need to provide for "public safety and national security"?
Does it mean that those who are the putative threats to said "public 
safety and national security" may volunteer to participate??  I can
see them lining up right now.  But then, I sure as hell don't plan
to volunteer either.  Uh oh, I guess that makes me suspect.  The
more I think about it, the more ludicrous and derisible this
pretense of "voluntary" becomes. 

How can someone not _want_ to volunteer to "contribute to public
safety and national security?" If you can succeed in imposing this
framework on the issue, then dealing with the heretics is so much
easier.  


> I get the feeling that wheels are turning, that deals are being cut.


I certainly concur with that feeling.  The wheels are definitely
turning.  They are racing to get the fundamentals in place in
advance of social and technical developments that might make their
job more difficult in the future. I wouldn't be surprized to see 
some cyberspatial version of the Reichstag fire come along as a goad 
to stampede the body politic into rash action on this issue. Perhaps
a series of such incidents involving a spectrum of the usual bogeymen 
in a way so as to push the hot buttons of the widest possible 
demographic.


As time goes by the constituency that could oppose their actions
grows. Concurrent developments in software and DSP technology are 
opening the window of opportunity for affordable consumer products 
that could provide secure, real-time public-key encryption of voice
and data communications. Once people have the knowledge and the tools
in their hands, they are much less inclined to accept ignorance as 
strength.  Which is why it is urgent that we do what we can to spread
the knowledge and forge the tools while the time is ripe.

 
> Wiretap bills, Software Key Escrow, Government Access to Keys,
> information superhighways, Data Cops...it's all getting pretty
> worrisome.


It sure ain't my idea of the millennium...



-Michael