From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 14:49:38 +0800
To: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Lotus notes 24 bit hack project?
In-Reply-To: <199604112014.NAA16020@netcom7.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199604122144.RAA25414@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



"Vladimir Z. Nuri" writes:
> reading notes on the recent RSA conference reminds me of something.
> 
> Lotus announced their 64 bit encryption for foreign users some 
> months ago, with 24 bits secretly "owned" by the NSA. there
> was some speculation here about how this was handled.

Actually there was virtually no speculation. There is an RSA public
key embedded in every copy of Lotus notes that was supplied by the NSA
and in which the top 24 bits get encrypted and sent out over the
wire. Its all simple enough.

> in any case it seems that reverse engineering of Lotus Notes
> would provide the answer, and we'd be able to embarrass both
> NSA and Lotus (who imho deserves it, for caving in to the NSA)
> all in the same sweep by revealing it to the world!!!

Revealing what? Its not like there is a mystery, Mr. Detweiler.

.pm