brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (12/08/84)
While it is legal for the NSA to tap USA to Canada phone calls, I am sure that the volume is far far too large for them to do so. When you consider that the USA and Canada are largest international traders in the world (yup, you guys buy and sell more from Canada than any other nation, including Japan and England) and that they have what are probably the two most advanced and connected phone systems in the world, and that they have close to the longest border in the world, it all adds up to a lot of phone calls. Now the usenet traffic to Europe, that's another story. They supposedly do listen to those calls, and I guess they might even decode modems - it makes their job easier for us to send it all in machine readable form! I wonder what would happen if we stuck encryption on the trans-atlantic link? Would there be some curious counter-intelligence forces (their only descriptive name) poking around within minutes? -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
dee@cca.UUCP (Donald Eastlake) (12/10/84)
(1) If you are worried about something a public as "news" for some
reason, you don't have to hypothesize about cross border stuff, NSA
probably has at least one direct news feed from somewhere or other.
(2) For other stuff, don't forget that under the relevant federal court
decisions interpreting the federal wiretap statute, it is NOT a
violation of this statute to tap machine readable text conversation.
This was apparently partly based on the pen recorder decisions which
make it NOT federal wire taping to record the numbers called from a
phone (which is somewhat analogous to it not being a "search" to record
the outsides, including to and from addresses of mial). On the other
hand, it is obviously a violation to tap analog voice conversations (and
presumably directly digitized conversations, although this has not come
up yet in court).
--
+ Donald E. Eastlake, III
ARPA: dee@CCA-UNIX usenet: {decvax,linus}!cca!deeix241@sdcc6.UUCP (ix241) (12/10/84)
> I wonder what would happen if we stuck encryption on the trans-atlantic > link? Would there be some curious counter-intelligence forces (their only > descriptive name) poking around within minutes? > -- > Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 Only to see if the algorithm is neat. You forget NSA does the codes for *everything* that the government wants to encrypt. John Testa UCSD Chemistry sdcsvax!sdcc6!ix241
jpm@calmasd.UUCP (John McNally) (12/11/84)
>> I wonder what would happen if we stuck encryption on the trans-atlantic >> link? Would there be some curious counter-intelligence forces (their only >> descriptive name) poking around within minutes? >> Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 >Only to see if the algorithm is neat. You forget NSA does the codes for >*everything* that the government wants to encrypt. >John Testa UCSD Chemistry sdcsvax!sdcc6!ix241 I think that Brad's idea is a good one. But, I think that John is misinformed. This is my understanding of things (not guaranteed correct): The government surely knows how to crack the DES (Data Encryption Standard) easily, which they (of course) encourage everyone to use because (so the argument goes) it has been shown to be secure. Here, secure means than any attacker will expend far more resources cracking the code than the value of any info obtained. I believe that DES uses a 51 bit code??? (the technical content of the following is certainly correct): However, using RSA public-key cryptography, I could encode a message that would give the NSA fits. RSA is based upon the intractability (to date) of the prime factoring problem. If I use an 800 bit key (the product of two large primes) a lot of computational power must be expended in finding the key's prime factors (admittedly, I would have to expend a bit of computing power encoding the message, but nowhere near what is required to crack it). There are just too many big primes and they are hard as hell to find. I do admit though that they will try and they will eventually succeed. Maybe Piet or some of those other mellow fellows in Amsterdam would like to give it a try. Given their political inclinations, they will certainly trigger the NSA attention. My only questions: Will we ever know anything about it and will anyone care when I disappear??? -- John McNally Calma 11080 Roselle St. San Diego CA 92121 ...{ucbvax,decvax}!sdcsvax!calmasd!jpm (619)-458-3230
jhull@spp2.UUCP (12/11/84)
In article <1832@sdcc6.UUCP> ix241@sdcc6.UUCP (ix241) writes: >> ... if we stuck encryption on the link...Would there be some >> counter-intelligence poking around ... >> Brad Templeton > >Only to see if the algorithm is neat. ... >John Testa And to find out what you think is worth protecting. Spooks want to know EVERYTHING that ANYONE wants to hide. Such stuff is their stock in trade... Blessed Be, jhull@spp2.UUCP Jeff Hull trwspp!spp2!jhull@trwrb.UUCP 13817 Yukon Ave. Hawthorne, CA 90250 -- Blessed Be, jhull@spp2.UUCP Jeff Hull trwspp!spp2!jhull@trwrb.UUCP 13817 Yukon Ave. Hawthorne, CA 90250
chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) (12/12/84)
> > I wonder what would happen if we stuck encryption on the trans-atlantic > > link? Would there be some curious counter-intelligence forces (their > > only descriptive name) poking around within minutes? > Only to see if the algorithm is neat. You forget NSA does the codes for > *everything* that the government wants to encrypt. To make things even more interesting, we could intersperse total garbage with real text. Then again, considering*, maybe we already do! :-) -------- *especially considering this message -- (This line accidently left nonblank.) In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (301) 454-7690 UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!chris CSNet: chris@umcp-cs ARPA: chris@maryland
sigma@usl.UUCP (Spyridon Triantafyllopoulos) (12/12/84)
Well, if you want to have some fun and infuriate (sp?) the
"intelligent agents" and the full time 007's, try mailing
some incombrehensible output (such as a nice 'a.out' or an APL
program) overseas... I really want to see 'em adb the whole thing
trying to get the keywords!!
Spiros Triantafyllopoulos
Computer Science Department
University of Southwestern Louisiana
{ut-sally, akgua}!usl!sigmajih@usl.UUCP (Juha I. Heinanen) (12/13/84)
I remember earlier seeing an article by Piet from Amsterdam where he
recommended using phone to get to the free world on the other side of
Atlantic. Unfortunately even that doesn't work as we have just heard.
The next step is to travel there yourself. Do it today since tomorrow
they may decide to erase your memory before you cross the border.
Juha Heinanen
{ut-sally, akgua}!usl!jihpolard@fortune.UUCP (Henry Polard) (12/13/84)
In article <303@spp2.UUCP> jhull@spp2.UUCP (Jeff Hull) writes: >In article <1832@sdcc6.UUCP> ix241@sdcc6.UUCP (ix241) writes: >>> ... if we stuck encryption on the link...Would there be some >>> counter-intelligence poking around ... >>> Brad Templeton >> >>Only to see if the algorithm is neat. ... >>John Testa >And to find out what you think is worth protecting. Spooks want to >know EVERYTHING that ANYONE wants to hide. Such stuff is their stock >in trade... Let's spook the spooks - we'll encrypt net.jokes, then net.religion, and to be really cruel, net.(shudder)flame! :-) -- Henry Polard (You bring the flames - I'll bring the marshmallows.) {ihnp4,cbosgd,amd}!fortune!polard N.B: The words in this posting do not necessarily express the opinions of me, my employer, or any AI project.
ron@wjvax.UUCP (12/19/84)
Wouldn't it be a gass if the government (any government) spent
big bucks factoring the primes of an encrypted transatlantic
submission and never figured out that the scheme was rot13??
--
Ron Christian (Watkins-Johnson Co. San Jose, Calif.)
{pesnta,twg,ios,qubix,turtlevax,tymix}!wjvax!ronfair@dual.UUCP (Erik E. Fair) (12/21/84)
>> From: ron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) >> Date: Tue, 18-Dec-84 17:40:18 PST >> Organization: Watkins Johnson, San Jose, Calif. >> >> Wouldn't it be a gass if the government (any government) spent >> big bucks factoring the primes of an encrypted transatlantic >> submission and never figured out that the scheme was rot13?? >> -- Actually, I believe that decvax is compressing news going over the trans-atlantic link (with compact) so in a sense, it is already encrypted (to anyone who doesn't know what a Huffman encoding scheme looks like)... Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucb-arpa.ARPA dual!fair@BERKELEY.ARPA {ihnp4,ucbvax,cbosgd,hplabs,decwrl,unisoft,fortune,sun,nsc}!dual!fair Dual Systems Corporation, Berkeley, California
david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) (12/24/84)
> From: ron@wjvax.UUCP > Subject: Re: Big Brother IS wtaching you - cross border phone traffic > Message-ID: <278@wjvax.UUCP> > Date: Tue, 18-Dec-84 20:40:18 EST > Wouldn't it be a gass if the government (any government) spent > big bucks factoring the primes of an encrypted transatlantic > submission and never figured out that the scheme was rot13?? This reminds me of a book that Heinlein wrote once. Most of the people on Venus were indentured workers. Some of the workers had escaped and were out in the jungles planning some sort of revolt. Our hero is a lawyer who had signed up as a bet with one of his rich drinking buddies. He happens to be an excellent amateur radio operator, and eventually joins with the revolutionists. They have problems with radio communications, the authorities keep hearing them. He dredges up a memory of an OLD archaic radio method called "Amplitude Modulation" (These people are so advanced they only have FM, and have never heard of AM). AM is invisible to the bad guys so the good guys win because they can now communicate with no problems. --:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:- David Herron; ARPA-> "ukma!david"@ANL-MCS (Try the arpa address w/ and w/o the quotes, I have had much trouble with both.) UUCP -:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:--:- (follow one of these routes) {ucbvax,unmvax,boulder,research} ! {anlams,anl-mcs} -----\ vvvvvvvvvvv >-!ukma!david {cbosgd!hasmed,mcvax!qtlon,vax135,mddc} ! qusavx -----/ ^^^^^^^^^^^