tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu (Tom Tedrick) (04/22/86)
>Let me put it to you this way: All countries encrypt; most >large corporations do too!! The U. S. surveillance techniques >are the most sophisticated in the world. Decyphering is seldom >a problem; note: we decyphered Russian communications with the >war planes which shot down KAL 007. Fortunately or unfortunately, there exist secure cryptosystems (1 time pads for example). Evidently the Libyans are too stupid to use them. Hopefully they will continue to be as stupid in the future as they have been in the past (at least with regards to cryptology {ouch! I still hate that word. I long for the old days when cryptography was the only word you needed to know ...}) Note that the Russians historically have been incredibly careless with wireless security. I heard they tightened up after the 007 incident. And that revealing that enemy cryptosystems have been broken is risky since this may lead to the enemy choosing better cryptosystems which are more difficult or impossible to break. I guess the politicians don't understand that we have been incredibly fortunate in being able to break enemy encryption schemes and that their loose talk may spoil the game. I read an amusing document put out by the government one time that I found buried in the UC library. It claimed that "while we had great sucess during WW2, unfortunately we have had little sucess in breaking enemy cryptosystems since that time." You have to admire them for their sense of humor.