From: hughes@ah.com (Eric Hughes)
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 94 11:20:52 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: on Fedwire and FRCS-80
In-Reply-To: <9402081742.AA26012@mass6.FRB.GOV>
Message-ID: <9402081910.AA01888@ah.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>All the "cool" secrets (wire transfers and the like) don't get anywhere NEAR
>the internet.  The Federal Reserve System has a separate (yes, encrypted)
>network for sharing data.  

A touchy spot?  Interestingly enough, the Fedwire network was only
recently encrypted.

The following information comes from a GAO report _Electronic Funds
Transfer: Oversight of Critical Banking Systems Should Be
Strengthened_.  GAO/IMTEC-90-14.  To get a fre copy, call 202-512-6000
or fax 301-258-4066.  And if you pay US taxes, you've already paid for
it!

In a reply letter from the Board of Governers of the Federal Reserve
System, they talk about FRCS-80, the Federal Reserve Communications
System, implemented in 1982.  In September 1989 a request for proposal
went out to encrypt the backbone network.  Encryption was supposed to
have been completed in the first half of 1990.  (I hear that it
slipped.  Given that FRCS-80 was implemented in '82, are we
surprised?)

I understand that Fedwire-II is now in operation, but I don't know if
that's new hardware and/or new software.

Here's the curious thing.  DES came out in 1976, and was supposed to
be secure for financial communications.  FRCS-80 had plenty of
opportunity to use DES, but didn't, for at least the first eight years
of operation.

Hmm.

And save the conspiracy theories about the Federal Reserve for
alt.conspiracy, please.

Eric