1994-06-02 - Re: Matt Blaze’s Clipper attack – details

Header Data

From: “Perry E. Metzger” <perry@imsi.com>
To: smb@research.att.com
Message Hash: e16146794edd37fd55885c57bafcc8541d07c1bca98c2d6f10cda21414cfb9f3
Message ID: <9406021924.AA02639@snark.imsi.com>
Reply To: <9406021901.AA22805@toad.com>
UTC Datetime: 1994-06-02 19:24:30 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 12:24:30 PDT

Raw message

From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@imsi.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jun 94 12:24:30 PDT
To: smb@research.att.com
Subject: Re: Matt Blaze's Clipper attack -- details
In-Reply-To: <9406021901.AA22805@toad.com>
Message-ID: <9406021924.AA02639@snark.imsi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



smb@research.att.com says:
> The LEAF contains a 32 bit unit id, an 80-bit session key encrypted
> with the per-device secret key, and a 16 bit checksum.  The whole thing
> is encrypted with the family key.  The checksum field is based on both
> the session key and the IV.

I'll point out that Matt concluded this based on empirical analysis of
LEAFs and IVs, no available documentation describes the nature of the
checksum. (More kudo's to Matt).

BTW, LEAF/IV pairs are manipulated by Tessera as a single operation. I
suppose this is, in retrospect, a big hint.

The observation that non-synchronized IVs pose little or no problem
was also another "damn; that should have been obvious" that Matt
picked up on and no one else got. I suppose the fact that the NSA
folks mixed the IV into the checksum meant that they thought
non-synchronized IVs would be more significant than they are.

Perry

PS Matt, you now have 14 more minutes of fame remaining. :-)





Thread