[45357] in Cypherpunks
Re: Attacking Clipper with timing info?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Herb Sutter)
Thu Dec 14 00:10:34 1995
Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 23:45:35 -0500
To: rittle@comm.mot.com, Jim_Miller@bilbo.suite.com
From: Herb Sutter <herbs@connobj.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
At 20:10 12.13.1995 CST, Loren James Rittle wrote:
>If it could be shown that Clipper chips require a fixed amount
>of time/current to encode/decode traffic, then we could conclude
>one of the following:
>
>(B1) The NSA knew about the issue and compensated for it.
>(B2) The NSA didn't know about the issue and got lucky.
>
>I discount B2 as a valid option. Actually, if the answer was B1,
>my respect for the NSA would creep up a notch. :-)
Remember those carefully-chosen S-box numbers for DES and how, years later,
how they just happened to turn out to be optimal for defending against the
newly-discovered (in non-military circles) technique of differential
cryptanalysis... :-)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Herb Sutter (herbs@connobj.com)
Connected Object Solutions 2228 Urwin - Suite 102 voice 416-618-0184
http://www.connobj.com/ Oakville ON Canada L6L 2T2 fax 905-847-6019
