Re: Sat phone permit "wire"taps

At 12:52 AM 7/31/95 -0700, rick hoselton wrote:
>
>>Different cases - the Walkers gave away information on how the Yankees were
>>stealing Russian secrets, which the Russians patched up by encrypting.
>
>Really?  Do you have a reference for this?  I am interested.
No refs, this is just memory of the news.  There was an undersea cable
north of Siberia somewhere that carried a lot of unencrypted military
traffic, which US Submarines were eavesdropping on.  I think Walker was
the one who leaked it, and they started encrypting.  Refs on the Walkers
should be easy to find in the library; there were a couple of books.
>
>>The most current information on the Rosenbergs, gotten from decrypted Soviet
>>communications and declassified US and ex-Soviet files, indicates that Ethel
>>Rosenberg
>>was probably innocent of spying, and Julius was spying but didn't give away
>>any useful atomic secrets, and that the FBI probably knew at the time they
>>had Ethel killed that she was innocent.  
>
>WOW!  Had them killed?  They WERE tried and convicted, you know. 

Yes, with government-provided evidence, and with the government withholding
inconvenient evidence.  There was a story on KPFA radio in the last week or so
covering an article on the Rosenbergs in some lefty magazine, probably The
Nation,
by a couple who have been strong supporters of them for years, and are now
saying that "sorry, friends, it looks like Julius _was_ spying, though not
atomically".
#---
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Bill, I also understood that the Walkers also leaked to the Soviets
details on U.S. submarine sonar operating procedures.

_Anyway_, my point was, if they can't keep _that_ secret, I doubt
they'd be able to keep secret the details/keys for activating the
backdoor on whatever artificially weakened system they're forced to
use (if they are).

Phil

On Mon, 31 Jul 1995, Phil Fraering wrote:

> Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 20:41:37 -0500
> From: Phil Fraering <pgf@tyrell.net>
> To: stewarts@ix.netcom.com
> Cc: hoz@univel.telescan.com, cypherpunks@toad.com
> Subject: Sat phone permit "wire"taps
> 
> Bill, I also understood that the Walkers also leaked to the Soviets
> details on U.S. submarine sonar operating procedures.
> 
> _Anyway_, my point was, if they can't keep _that_ secret, I doubt
> they'd be able to keep secret the details/keys for activating the
> backdoor on whatever artificially weakened system they're forced to
> use (if they are).
> 
> Phil
> 

What the walkers really gave over was the ability to decode U.S. Naval 
and some diplomatic ciphers through the surrender of codebooks, 
procedures, keycards and repair manuals for the crypto hardware.  The 
resulting traffic and crypto analysis was backbreaking- and valuable 
enough to make Walker Sr. the best paid spy to that date in the Soviet 
scheme of things.

Sov's discovered their traffic was being read on the Ivy line by 
listening to naval and diplomatic communication referencing it directly- 
and a little bit of selective transmission to confirm the source of 
intelligence.  (The U.S. played a similar trick on the Japanese to verify 
Midway as their target in the Pacific- they were reading Purple and the 
JN-12 and JN series flawlessly at the time)

Sov's discovered their subs were being tracked with amazing ease by 
listening to U.S. Naval anti-sub communications and reports.  The 
result:  Directed attention to the noise emmisions of their sub fleet, 
something they might have overlooked for years otherwise.

The grand result:  Among others: Stronger Soviet Encryption, and the 
purchase from Japan of high precision milling equipment which allowed the
Sov's to produce perfected and hyper quiet propellers for their subs- they
jumped 10 years in technology in 12 months.

The most damaging and most coveted espionage information is cryptanalysis.

Period.

---
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