From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 6c49844b6fa2b4fdf96b3a7143df2334f6bc006c0c731af948bb5dc2da5da87f
Message ID: <199807211530.LAA08035@camel8.mindspring.com>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1998-07-21 15:31:00 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 08:31:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998 08:31:00 -0700 (PDT)
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: NSA's Long Strong Arm
Message-ID: <199807211530.LAA08035@camel8.mindspring.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain
>From a series in Network World, July 20, 1998,
"The Long, Strong Arm of the NSA," about the
Agency's methods of enforcing export obedience
with intimidation, delay and obfuscation:
User manual: Dodging the rules
By Ellen Messmer Network World,
The National Security Agency (NSA) wrote the export rules
on encryption. But from the point of view of corporations
that want to ship U.S. software to their foreign offices,
getting around the U.S. export rules is a top priority.
And even for those who used to work at the NSA, it's still
a challenge.
"Well, I wrote those export rules when I was at the NSA,"
confessed Russell Davis, now chief of information technology
security at SBC Warburg Dillon Read, a division of Swiss Bank
Corp., which operates in 77 countries. Since joining the
corporate life, Davis has used his knowledge of the NSA to
find ways to work around the export system on behalf of his
customer, the bank, which uses a lot of encryption-based
security gear.
"It took 17 months to figure out how to get crypto-based
smart cards to Swiss facilities and elsewhere," Davis said.
"But I wrote the rules on all this, and I know how to get
around them." Would he ever consider using government-
approved data-recovery?
"Never," Davis declared. "My customers come first!"
"Our customers just aren't going to buy these types of
products," said Tom Carty, vice president of business
development for GTE CyberTrust. He agreed the government is
leading industry down a path to build products few users
will willingly buy.
---------
More at Network World:
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/0720nsa.html (requires sign-up)
Mirror:
http://jya.com/nsa-lsa.htm
Thanks to MO.
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