🚀 go-pugleaf

From the January 1987 issue of >Home Satellite TV<, "A "CHIP" That Unlocks
Scrambling" by Bob Cooper, Jr. (pp. 51-55, 67):

	"The Videocipher has been broken through the U30 device
	found inside of the M/A Com descrambler and pictured on
	our front cover.  It holds the key to a "quick decoding"
	fix discovered by many Videocipher hackers.  The chip is
	re-programmed with user instructions which essentially
	unlock the descrambler for transmissions which were
	previously secure."

The basic question still remains: Did they break DES or short-cut the keying?
The chip on the front cover is an Intel P27128A-2 L5420254, whatever that
is - EPROM?  The article doesn't go into details.  It hints that the flaw
was key management ("The decision to transmit the keys, no matter how
cleverly they might be disguised, would later turn out to be a poor
decision.") but devotes a lot of space to talk about "murky" "DES protection
statutes", whatever they are.  It also claims that "...military and diplomatic
messages encrypted with DES [are] being distributed all over the globe..."
and echoes the silly M/A-Com treasonability warning.  It would seem that
the author doesn't know encryption or the law very well.  At one point he
quotes an otherwise unreferenced announcement by NSA:

	"Effective 1 January 1986 ... the U.S. government will no longer
	sanction the DES code for encryption systems.  The DES code has
	become vulnerable to code breakers."

Uhh, somehow I don't think that's quite their style...

So: details to follow in the Caribbean.  Cooper's Hotline (305-771-0575) says
that attendees will receive sample DEScrambling chip sets as souvenirs!

Humorous note - at one point the article observes:

	"It has also been something of a mystery why hundreds of individuals
	and groups, working to bust Videocipher, have been allowed to continue
	their efforts to bust the system without some form of federal
	intervention, or at the very least, a public warning from NSA, the
	FBI or the Department of Justice [with reference to the murky DES
	protection laws, I guess].  Perhaps, just perhaps, the whole
	Videocipher system has been a paper tiger from the beginning."

Sounds like an excerpt from sci.crypt about the DES itself, eh?
-- 
Richard Outerbridge	<outer@utcsri.UUCP>	 (416) 961-4757
Payload Deliveries:	N 43 39'36", W 79 23'42", Elev. 106.47m.