[11944] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Clipper and Aldrich Ames
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Tue Apr 26 02:18:10 1994
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 21:54:02 -0400
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: bryon@boa.meaddata.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Bryon Propst's message of Mon, 25 Apr 94 13:13:00 EDT <9404251713.AA01402@boa.boa.meaddata.com>
>Data Communications reported in their April issue that the Clipper
>technology may have been sold to the Russians by Aldrich Ames, thereby
>making it an obsolete technology for the US gvt. However, I have heard
>nothing more about the validity of this report.
>
>Is this true? It would make me so happy.... ;-)
This seems like a weird story, was the data encryption technology to
be used with Clipper some sort of secret? I don't think so. So what
could Ames have sold? All the keys? Do they even exist yet? Wouldn't
simply scrambling (e.g. re-pairing) or generating a new set of keys
fix this?
Unless I'm missing something it doesn't make sense. I suppose the
paranoid side of me says if this story is fundamentally true then
there was a known, universal trap-door that was revealed. Swell.
-Barry Shein
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