From: Bryce <wilcoxb@nagina.cs.colorado.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:41:03 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: encryption in BeOS kernel
Message-ID: <199511150222.TAA15162@nagina.cs.colorado.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Some of you may be aware of this interesting new computer named the
"BeBox" which will start shipping in Q1 96 I think.
 Go here for more info. 


A paragraph on the Q&A page caught my attention and when they asked
for expert advice I naturally thought of you guys.


"Q: What security protection will the BeBox have?

 A: We're planning to offer a security/encryption mechanism at the
 kernel level. However, we haven't nailed down the details of this
 mechanism, so your expert input would be appreciated. One of our
 primary interests is to allow encryption of application software for
 individual machines. (The flash ROM in each BeBox will be serialized
 in the portion of the ROM which is unmodifiable.)"


I have two things to add:

1.  The scheme they mention there is, I think, intended to be a 
software protection scheme and like all such is doomed to failure.  
I hope they don't spend to much effort on it.  On the other hand
there might be some nifty crypto applications that could use this
unique identifier.  Although none come to mind...


2.  Be, Inc. is located in Menlo Park, CA, USA and Paris, France.  
They couldn't have picked two countries who are more likely to 
royally screw them by restricting the export/sale of their product 
once said product has encryption built-in.  (Of course they could 
put the encryption in a loadable kernel module, which would be an 
interesting test of ITAR's "crypto-with-a-hole" restrictions.)


I hope the NSA isn't reading this and getting ideas...


Bryce

signatures follow


            "To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."   
    <a href="http://www-ugrad.cs.colorado.edu/~wilcoxb/Niche.html">

                          bryce@colorado.edu                   </a>



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