[Cryptography] Opening Discussion: Speculation on "BULLRUN"

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Sat, Sep 7, 2013 at 10:35 PM, Gregory Perry
<Gregory.Perry at govirtual.tv>wrote:

>  >On 09/07/2013 09:59 PM, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> >
> >Anyone who thinks Jeff was an NSA mole when he was one of the main people
> behind the MIT version of PGP and the distribution of Kerberos is >talking
> daft.
> >
>  >I think that the influence was rather more subtle and was more directed
> at encouraging choices that would make the crypto hopelessly impractical
> >so people would not use it than in adding backdoors.
> >
>  >
>  >One of the lessons of PRISM is that metadata is very valuable. In
> particular social network analysis. If I know who is talking to whom then I
> have >pretty much 90% of the data needed to wrap up any conspiracy against
> the government. So lets make sure we all use PGP and sign each other's
> >keys...
>
> 1) At the core of the initial PGP distribution authored by Philip R.
> Zimmermann, Jr. was the RSA public key encryption method
>
> 2) At that time, the Clinton administration and his FBI was advocating
> widespread public key escrow mechanisms, in addition to the inclusion of
> the Clipper chip to all telecommunication devices to be used for remote
> "lawful intercepts"
>
> 3) Shortly after the token indictment of Zimmerman (thus prompting
> widespread use and promotion of the RSA public key encryption algorithm),
> the Clinton administration's FBI then advocated a relaxation of encryption
> export regulations in addition to dropping all plans for the Clipper chip
>
> 4) On September 21, 2000, the patent for the RSA public key encryption
> algorithm expired, yet RSA released their open source version of the RSA
> encryption algorithm two weeks prior to their patent's expiry for use
> within the public domain
>
> 5) Based upon the widespread use and public adoption of the RSA public key
> encryption method via the original PGP debacle, RSA (now EMC) could have
> easily adjusted the initial RSA patent term under the auspice of national
> security, which would have guaranteed untold millions (if not billions) of
> additional dollars in revenue to the corporate RSA patent holder
>
> You do the math
>

This is seriously off topic here but the idea that the indictment of Phil
Zimmerman was a token effort is nonsense. I was not accusing Phil Z. of
being a plant.

Not only was Louis Freeh going after Zimmerman for real, he went against
Clinton in revenge for the Clipper chip program being junked. He spent much
of Clinton's second term conspiring with Republicans in Congress to get
Clinton impeached.

Clipper was an NSA initiative that began under Bush or probably even
earlier. They got the incoming administration to endorse it as a fait
accompli.


Snowden and Manning on the other hand... Well I do wonder if this is all
some mind game to get people to secure the Internet against cyberattacks.
But the reason I discount that as a possibility is that what has been
revealed has completely destroyed trust. We can't work with the Federal
Government on information security the way that we did in the past any more.

I think the administration needs to make a downpayment on restoring trust.
They could begin by closing the gulag in Guantanamo.

-- 
Website: http://hallambaker.com/
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