[Cryptography] FOI of NSA's cryptanalysis of DES

[Alfie John]

On Tue, Jan 31, 2017 at 04:27:10PM -0800, John Gilmore wrote:
> > Just wondering if anyone has made any attempt at FOI'ing the NSA's cryptanalysis of DES.
>
> This would be an interesting topic.
>
> However, I would not be at
> all surprised if there were copies of the staff report (and inputs to
> it) in various Executive Branch agencies (NBS, NSA), where they could
> be FOIAd.  Sending them a FOIA request would trigger a mandatory
> declassification review, which might lead to some releases, IF they
> have and can find copies of the documents, which is a big IF for a
> 1978 document.
> 
> The unclassified summary also says, "Over 200 pages of private and
> public papers and documents were also analyzed".  I suggest trying
> to FOIA those papers, as well as the staff report.
> 
> You could also check into what has happened to the former committee
> staff (William G. Miller, Earl D. Eisenhower, and Audrey H. Hatry are
> identified in the unclassified summary).  I know that some of the
> staff of the Church Committee went on to write good books about what
> they were doing and what they learned "back in the day" while
> investigating NSA.
> 
> But you are asking for something slightly different -- a cryptanalysis
> of DES, not an inquiry into its subversion.  You could try asking, but
> you'll probably get a stonewall response, unless you can identify some
> particular document (like the above) that they can't help but find if
> they look in the right files.  Maybe try asking for the designs of
> DES-cracking machines built by NSA.  We know they have done it, almost
> certainly before we did it.

Thanks for the detailed reponse John. Unfortunately as a non-US citizen,
I don't think my FOI request would even be taken into consideration.

If anyone on the list here has experience with FOI requests, documents
found may me yeild a treasure trove of info to the field.

Alfie

-- 
Alfie John
https://www.alfie.wtf