🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1hnth3INNjd3@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bz223@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Danny Guy Frezza) writes:
>	I read about a week or so ago from USA Electronic edition of
>"Telecomunication", that phones in Europe (Cellular) were going to have
>encrypt/decrypt device in them.  I was wondering what the state of affairs
>in US are concerning this possibility for us

Unfortunately, thanks to NSA meddling, the cause of meaningful voice
privacy over cellular telephones is lost in the US. The "encryption
standard" that won out for IS-54B digital cellular is essentially the
same laughable XOR-with-a-fixed-key scheme that is frequently
mentioned here with regard to toy encryption packages for the PC.

That was the most the NSA would allow for export. Considering where
most cellular phones are made these days, a non-exportable algorithm
was not acceptable even for a US-only standard.

Now the IS-54B *authentication* scheme is much better, though not
perfect. But then again the NSA doesn't really care about
authentication, and the carriers and vendors who are writing the spec
care a lot more about protecting their revenue stream than their
customers' privacy.

Phil