From: Martin Janzen <janzen@idacom.hp.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 1997 06:41:57 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: new in EFC's media archives - Mondex, crypto (fwd)
Message-ID: <9710012220.AA05578@sabel.idacom.hp.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




Electronic Frontier Canada's David Jones (djones@insight.dcss.McMaster.CA)
posted the following to the EFC mailing list:

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New in EFC's media archives:

1. Plastic treasure ... not so smart after all
      http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/guardian.24sep97.html

   This article reports that a team in the Netherlands
   made a "successful attack" on a Mondex chip (Hitachi H8/3101)
   by activating a test mode in which the chip dumps its
   contents to a serial port.  John Beric, security manager
   for Mondex simply says "I have never SEEN a report saying
   they have broken Mondex".  (Is this plausible deniability?? ;-)

   The article also makes mention of EFC getting hassled by
   the National Bank of New Zealand over a leaked memo.

   In the mean time, Mondex is trying to ramp up deployment of
   its new chip, the Hitachi H8/3109, which (for the first time apparently)
   implements public key crypto.


2. If cops can read E-mail, so can the bad guys
      http://www.efc.ca/pages/media/gazette.24sep97.html

   Some coverage of the "crypto" issue in the context of
   a major international privacy conference held in Montreal
   last week.  EFC scored some coverage for its position
   statement on crypto: http://www.efc.ca/pages/crypto/policy.html
   including a quote in favour of strong crypto:

      "There is a far greater risk to individuals, businesses, and the
      government if we are unable to effectively prevent criminals from
      gaining unauthorized access to our records and communications."

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