From: gtoal@an-teallach.com (Graham Toal)
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 94 06:36:06 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Didn't anyone note the A5 posting?
Message-ID: <199406201335.OAA08727@an-teallach.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Didn't anyone notice that someone posted a putative source code for
the secret A5 algorithm as used in GSM phones?  (It was on sci.crypt
xposted to uk.telecom, on Friday).  Seems someone was going to give
a talk on ways of hacking the algorithm, at some university, and he
got stomped on by CGHQ.  So another guy has come out in sympathy and
posted his reconstruction of the algorithm in C as reverse engineered
from a hardware description he received in a plain brown envelope!

This is *significantly* more of a coup on the net that the NSA handbook.

Now, all I need is for you guys to explain coherently *why* it's a
good coup and what the political implications are, and I'll feed the
story to the UK press.  (I don't think anyone here has it yet...)

G