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1996-01-25 - Re: Crippled Notes export encryption

Header Data

From: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
To: David Mazieres <dm@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu>
Message Hash: 1c135cb9d7cfdbd932b27fc85af1ec44f6de02975bf47fceeb21edfae152aca7
Message ID: <199601250034.TAA09745@toxicwaste.media.mit.edu>
Reply To: <199601242346.SAA14838@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu>
UTC Datetime: 1996-01-25 05:47:25 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 13:47:25 +0800

Raw message

From: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 13:47:25 +0800
To: David Mazieres <dm@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: Crippled Notes export encryption
In-Reply-To: <199601242346.SAA14838@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <199601250034.TAA09745@toxicwaste.media.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> So where exactly do they draw the line?  You can still construct your
> software in such a way that there is a clean boundary between the
> crypto stuff and the rest.

The line is drawn, AFAIK, at the actual crypto routines.  You cannot
export the crypto routines, and the functions that call the crypto
routines.

> For example, could you have an application with a  function:
> 
> 	authenticate_user (int file_descriptor)
> 
> which in the exportable version sends a password, and in the domestic 
> version constructs some sort of authenticator?

Yes.  In fact, this is what Bones did.

> Could you have an xdr-like function which on in an exportable version
> just does argument marshaling and in a domestic version also encrypts?

Yes.  However the exported code cannot have the encryption hooks
in the code.

> How exactly are crypto-hooks defined?  This restriction seems orders
> of magnitude more bogus than even the ban on exporting actual
> encryption.

Very vaguely.  If I have a function that does something like this:

authenticate (args)
{
	...

	des_encrypt ();
	...
}

I would have to remove the des_encrypt() call from the authenticate()
routine before it can be exported...

-derek

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