1996-07-20 - RE: NSA response to key length report

Header Data

From: “geeman@best.com” <geeman@best.com>
To: “‘cypherpunks@toad.com>
Message Hash: 839390eb369ba0fb7c8eb1a025f2e67db8c9f5e7d57f8cb2921b8e9b79cf2e27
Message ID: <01BB75C4.B64C15A0@geeman.vip.best.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1996-07-20 07:31:45 UTC
Raw Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 15:31:45 +0800

Raw message

From: "geeman@best.com" <geeman@best.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 1996 15:31:45 +0800
To: "'cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: RE: NSA response to key length report
Message-ID: <01BB75C4.B64C15A0@geeman.vip.best.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



What I don't get is why the "report" is so semi-literate? The grammar 
errors are curious given the supposed source; it even makes me a little 
skeptical as to the source.

My take on the bit about "high processing speeds -> I/O bound" isn't that 
they're talking IPC, but bus timing (??)
I don't have the original paper handy and I don't recall what the proposed 
processor speeds are.

"Total exhaust time"  --- is this truly as meaningless as it sounds?

----------
From: 	Matt Blaze[SMTP:mab@crypto.com]
Sent: 	Friday, July 19, 1996 2:10 PM
To: 	Ernest Hua
Cc: 	cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: 	Re: NSA response to key length report

Ernest Hua <hua@xenon.chromatic.com> writes:
>
> It sounds like most of their "counter-arguments" are just stalling 
tactics.
>
> If you are a lawyer for someone you know is guilty, you still would 
choose
> to find every reason in the book to attack the prosecution's case.  Here 
we
> have precisely the same effect with the NSA.  Any tactical manuveur to 
keep
> stalling the impending collapse of ITAR.
>
> (It is human .. er .. rather .. bureaucrat-esque to claim innocence in 
the
> face of overwhelming evidence of guilt.)

Particularly impressive is that our key length report was hardly
above criticism from several angles, but their rebuttal managed
somehow to avoid them.

What I find most disturbing about this is that their report was
provided secretly to policymakers in the administration and in
Congress, without independent technical review that would have
quickly exposed the fallacy of the arguments.  I never would have
seen it had several of the recipients not faxed it to me.  This is
the first hard evidence I've seen of NSA providing anything less
than the highest quality technical analysis to other parts of the
government.  A non-specialist reader would be easily misled by the
technically dense, but completely irrelevant, "rebuttal".  It smacks
of either ill-informed sloppiness, or, perhaps worse, self-serving
disingenuous cynicism.  Either conclusion is scary, and, to me in
fact, quite surprising.

-matt









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