[12933] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
RE: Russia Intercepts US Military Communications?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (dave)
Mon Mar 31 21:24:24 2003
X-Original-To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com
X-Original-To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com
From: "dave" <dave@netmedic.net>
To: "'Peter Wayner'" <pcw2@flyzone.com>,
"'reusch'" <reusch@comcast.net>, <cryptography@wasabisystems.com>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 20:42:38 -0500
In-Reply-To: <a05111b10baae356ddf9d@[10.0.1.25]>
Well I am sure most of you would be amazed and/or flabbergasted with how =
the
"crypto" keys are handed out for the different avionics/communication
devices on a daily basis. You will know if you forgot one of them like =
when
you pass over a hawk missile sight at the edge of base, and they lock on =
and
start tracking you. Notice I said "daily" basis. Might give a hint to =
how
they "ran out".
Dave
=20
_____________________
Dave Kleiman
dave@netmedic.net
www.netmedic.net
=20
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-cryptography@wasabisystems.com
[mailto:owner-cryptography@wasabisystems.com] On Behalf Of Peter Wayner
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2003 13:18
To: reusch; cryptography@wasabisystems.com
Subject: Re: Russia Intercepts US Military Communications?
At 7:38 PM -0500 3/30/03, reusch wrote:
>Via the Cryptome, http://www.cryptome.org/, "RU sure", look
>at http://www.aeronautics.ru/news/news002/news082.htm.
I showed this link to a friend who fixes helicopters for the=20
Army/Marines. He was incredulous at first, but then said, "Oh, they=20
probably just turned off the crypto. There's a switch to do that.=20
Sometimes you have to do that if things screw up."
He went on to talk about "crypto" as if it was something like fuel or=20
food. He said, "They probably loaded up 4 or 5 days of crypto at the=20
beginning, but then they had to turn it off after the supply lines=20
got muddled."
So this would be consistent with some key management structures but=20
not with others. If you give a unit a good random number source and=20
diffie-hellman, they should be able to go the entire war without=20
running out of "crypto." But I don't know if the US military embraces=20
the kind of hierarchy-free key management imagined by cypherpunks.
Of course, many of the details from the Russian could be gathered=20
from raw traffic analysis. It's easy to count messages and=20
triangulate to figure out where US troops are massing. It's also easy=20
to tell that an absence of messages from the interior of the city=20
means that the US troops haven't entered yet. The crypto may cloak=20
the details of the messages, but those details may not be too=20
important. (I wouldn't be surprised if they carried some news of the=20
NCAA basketball tournament, for instance.)
-Peter
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