1994-06-03 - Re: LEAF forgery

Header Data

From: “Perry E. Metzger” <perry@imsi.com>
To: VACCINIA@uncvx1.oit.unc.edu
Message Hash: aea60611d8274c739e643d4caa496ec634f22ccaf45b556e6a8d792a58b6330c
Message ID: <9406031904.AA04786@snark.imsi.com>
Reply To: <01HD3Y2AJFOY0046AF@UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU>
UTC Datetime: 1994-06-03 19:05:29 UTC
Raw Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 12:05:29 PDT

Raw message

From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>
Date: Fri, 3 Jun 94 12:05:29 PDT
To: VACCINIA@uncvx1.oit.unc.edu
Subject: Re: LEAF forgery
In-Reply-To: <01HD3Y2AJFOY0046AF@UNCVX1.OIT.UNC.EDU>
Message-ID: <9406031904.AA04786@snark.imsi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



VACCINIA@uncvx1.oit.unc.edu says:
> >Your belief is without evidence. It is a supposition. I'd say the NSA 
> >has a lot to lose by putting holes in Skipjack.
> 
> How true, yet the NSA also had a lot to lose by putting out a flawed 
> backdoor in Skipjack which essentially negates much of this features (LEAF)
> value. They did so none the less.

All the evidence is that it was an accident. You contend, without
evidence or even a rational reason, that they did it intentionally.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I operate on evidence and the
assumption that people behave in their self interest. NSA had nothing
to gain by sabotaging their own efforts in this manner. Even if they
had another back door it is worth their while to make the public back
door as good as possible. The notion that they would have done it
badly intentionally for no reason when doing it well would be easy is
at the very least without evidence or even rational suspicion.

What would they possibly have to gain via such an act?

> In addition, it is possible that the agency is not alarmed about their LEAF
> problems because they don't need to use it.

They may be able redesign the system before widespread deployment.
Its also in their interest to play mistakes down. How do YOU know they
aren't really embarassed?

Perry





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