Subject: Re: [Raven] IETF and wiretapping and LAPD (oh my!)

From: John Gilmore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 21:17:28 -0800

> I don't believe government has "managed" the 
> easy monitoring of early cellphones. I know the EU 
> orchestrated GSM that was designed with some reasonable 
> encryption.

You have not examined the evidence, then.  GSM was deliberately made
weak, and kept secret to hide its weakness.  Just like the DVD
encryption, which was broken last week, as soon as semi-real
cryptographers were able to see the algorithm, it was broken within
weeks.  Of course, the governments could see the GSM algorithm all
along, and I'm sure they have a large infrastructure deployed for
breaking it.

See http://jya.com/crypto.htm and search for GSM.

The US digital cellphone standards suffered the same fate, except that
there are clear records that NSA was part of the design committee and
was lying to the committee by telling it that foreigners could not
attend these public meetings without violating the export law.  They
succeeded in "bending" the public standards process by producing a
standard that the public was not allowed to see, in private meetings,
where the government lied to and misled them.

The resulting scheme was pitiful; one of its designers once told me
that it "depended on the randomness of the digital voice signal",
which of course isn't random at all, since the phone on the other end
seems to have no trouble turning it back into deterministic voices.
Once this scheme saw the light of day, due to a courageous online
publisher who was threatened with legal action by the CTIA, it was
immediately broken, (after millions of easy-to-tap cellphones were
deployed).  The Cellular Telephone Industry Association then set up a
new standards group to define a replacement encryption scheme.  Last I
heard they were still proposing some arcane custom thing rather than
taking a straightforward, secure, and well understood algorithm like
3DES, but I'm out of date.  The chair of the group is
<[email-masked]>, and there is a meeting next week in San
Francsico and another in December in Hawaii.  

Chris, can you post to this set of email addresses where the web page
for the TR45.3 Ad Hoc Authentication Group is?  Thanks...

> > Anything that does publish those audit records
> > immediately, defeats the secrecy of the taps, 
> 
> MD5 hashes wont reveal more than necessary.

If I wondered whether my phone is tapped, could I hash my own phone
number and then compare it with the hashes being published?

> All technology can probably always be misused. IETF can 
> propose a standard that very difficult to misuse. If IETF 
> designs the standard well it can easily be upgraded to even 
> better prevent misuse of it.

My guess is that IETF will design a set of standards that are very,
very, very hard to tap.  One that none of its designers knows how to
tap.  End-to-end encryption so that nobody in the middle, like a telco
who the government can lean on, can defeat the encryption.  Like IPv6
is being designed to be very hard to tap.  And that way it will be
hard for governments or miscreants to misuse it.  Like they do today.

If only the cellular phone committee would consider building in
real end-to-end privacy too.  But the cellular industry, unlike the
people building Internet equipment, doesn't care at all about the
privacy of its customers, as long as they keep paying.

	John

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---

From: "chefren" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1999 17:24:27 +0100

> number and then compare it with the hashes being published?

No because you will not have the input from other parties: 
The communication provider and the tapping room of law 
enforcement.

> very, very hard to tap.

But will those standards be used and above all allowed?

As far as I see encryption is little used. Even too little 
since I think communication providers should encrypt the 
data of their customers these days.

> One that none of its designers knows how to tap.

It's still technology and can probably be broken in the 
future.

>  End-to-end encryption so that nobody in the middle, like 
a telco
> who the government can lean on, can defeat the encryption.

If that will really be used and places of refuge will 
develop for organized crime that kind of technology will 
inevitably be regulated.

And yes I admit, regulation won't give 100% guarantees. But 
thats about always the case with regulation. Murdering is 
forbidden a long time and still people do it.

> Like IPv6

Might be might be but all besides the proposal for an 
auditable tap.

> privacy of its customers, as long as they keep paying.

I guess their customers don't think it's necessary. And as 
far as I know they vote on parties that come in government 
and decide so too.

Again and again I see arguments of people who have problems 
with respecting democracy.

Pitty. The only thing that encounters free use of strong 
encryption by criminals is very raw work by law 
enforcement. I think that will break much more privacy than 
the "encryption believers" have ever thought of.

Strong encryption doesn't balance!

+++chefren

p.s. If this list ends: My thanks to all people who have 
written to it. I have met some new people that also think 
that IF taps are made they should be audible and secure and 
we will do a proposal. If you are also interested please 
inform me.

=Large signature follows=

I think we need a simple architecture for a point
to point tap interface that has strong provisions
against misuse.

On one side the communication provider who only
starts tapping a specific customer or IP number
with proper warrants.

On the other side the approved tapping room.
Everything should be organized by the central
"tapping office". This office should provide
keys for strong encryption to both communication
provider and tapping room.

Law and technology should both provide as
much checks and balances as we can come up
with. Law can provide good procedures,
technology can provide technical means to
check them or force them.    

=Large signature ended, please comment me
off-line to make it better=