Re: Spies using PGP

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Article #2180

#2180

From: Steven Bellovin
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:32

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In article <1992Dec14.054304.1311@fasttech.com>, zeke@fasttech.com (Bohdan Tashchuk) writes:
> I'm not really a student of bureaucracy but I'll suggest that Not Invented
> Here would be a bigger obstacle keeping an agency from adopting PGP than any
> weaknesses in it.

Nope.  With something like a cryptosystem, the very fact that it's wide-
spread makes it undesirable for really sensitive messages.  PGP, if
widespread -- and for that matter, DES right now -- are important targets
for NSA et al. simply because they could recover a lot of traffic given
a general solution methodology.

> There is a general consensus that real spooks disparage the
> use of factoring based cryptosystems

Realy?  From everything I've heard, the opposite is true, especially if
the numbers are large enough.

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Message-ID: <1992Dec14.143221.26055@ulysses.att.com>

Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!wupost!uwm.edu!linac!att!att!dptg!ulysses!ulysses!smb

References: <1992Dec10.064145.21209@fasttech.com> <hmiller.724028396@lucpul.it.luc.edu> <1992Dec14.054304.1311@fasttech.com>

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Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!wupost!uwm.edu!linac!att!att!dptg!ulysses!ulysses!smb
From: smb@research.att.com (Steven Bellovin)
Subject: Re: Spies using PGP
Message-ID: <1992Dec14.143221.26055@ulysses.att.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 14:32:21 GMT
References: <1992Dec10.064145.21209@fasttech.com> <hmiller.724028396@lucpul.it.luc.edu> <1992Dec14.054304.1311@fasttech.com>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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