From: remail@tamsun.tamu.edu
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 18:24:08 PDT
To: Cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: No Subject
Message-ID: <9309150121.AA13893@tamsun.tamu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> If people are willing to go to these measures to steal Intel
> microprocessors, which are generally available, imagine what people
> will do in order to steal unprogrammed Skipjack chips.  In the volume
> the Government would like to see them made, the physical security
> which one might want to give to a classified production facility will
> be difficult or impossible.

They thought of this. The Skipjack algorithm is programmed into the
chip at the same time the escrowed keys are. If you steal the unprogrammed
chips you may learn the list of basic operations that are part of
Skipjack. However there are also basic operations implemented on the
chip which are *not* part of Skipjack but are there just to confuse
someone who would disassemble a chip.

Btw. This also means that the actual chip assembly line does not require
cleared workers.