Clipper chip support

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

[ Sam describes himself as:


> My concern is with the socially transformative power of civic nets.
> I have spend my adult life building and supporting progressive
> organizations involved in political and economic activities. I am
> also extremely interested in advanced technology and have been a
> principal in several small computer companies.
>
> I am currently an independent consultant in the areas of
> information systems and wide area computer networks. I write
> articles for several publications on these subjects.


He is also a founder of the Toronto CA FreeNet


There is much in this article I disagree with but as they say ....


... djf]


Date:         Tue, 08 Feb 94 14:14:25 EST
From: Sam Sternberg <SAMSAM () vm1 yorku ca>


The CLIPPER CHIP CONTROVERSY


The Clinton Adminstration - bowing to pressure from the
Intelligence Community - has decided to go ahead with the clipper
chip proposal.


BACKGROUND ON THE CLIPPER CHIP PROPOSAL AND ITS BENEFITS


This proposal is best understood in the context of the history of
the western intelligence community.


The ability to secretly intercept the communications of others has
been vital to covert action since the earliest days of
international telecommunications. When the first transatlantic
cable was laid between Britain and the U.S. in 1927; its operations
where monitored by secret agreement between both countries.
Britain would capture and analyze all calls comming from the U.S.
and the Americans would do the same with british traffic. Relevant
material would be sent back to each other. This allowed both
countries to honestly proclaim they were not spying on their own
citizens, while benefiting from the fact that someone else was.


By the end of the second world war; a war that the allies won
primarily because of stategic advantage gained from superior
telecommunication interception; the english speaking powers agreed
to create a multinational agency to capture all the information in
the world. Every newspaper, radio braodcast, t.v. transmission, and
international telegraph or phone call was to be captured and
recorded and stored for possible future analysis.


That agreement is still in place. The publications of the FBIS [
Foriegn Broadcast Information Service ] are an example of the
publicly disclosed results of the joint monitoring program.


Today, Canada intercepts private communication in the U.S. and vice
versa. This is not illegal. Each country's laws forbid it from
invading the privacy of its own citizens. These same laws
intentionally provide no such protection for the communications of
other nations.


The Internet began as a service of the U.S. military. It is
impossible to believe that national security considerations were
not incorporated into its design. To this day the highest level
technical meetings on Internet design in the U.S. can only be
attended by individuals with security clearances.


The Internet is above all an international network. Messages travel
around the globe in fractions of a second. From an intelligence
prespective this amounts to providing an unwanted window on the
U.S. to the rest of the world. A disloyal government employee could
encode a document - and send it over the internet to anyone in the
world. An illegally distributed document, once securely encoded may
be captured, but unless it is crackable, the government would be
hard put to determine the nature of the damage done to its security
interests, because it could not determine what document it had in
its possession. The recent decision of the Department of Defence
to end Internet access for most of its employees is grounded in
these considerations.


Similar considerations arise for companies that depend on technical
secrets for their market advantage, or that wish to be certain that
their strategies can not be discovered by competitors.


Ordinary citizens also value privacy.


Of course - the internet isn't the only problem technology. Digital
cellular phones will soon be voice activated and may weigh less
than an ounce. The same disloyal government employee will then be
able to capture and encode a document. Then, with the aid of a
cellular modem, broadcast it to any point on the globe.
-------------------


A good situation for a national intelligence service is one in
which your own communications are untapable, while everyone elses
are easily accessed. The ideal situation exists when everyone
believes that their own systems are secure - when they are in fact
not secure.


The clipper chip proposal - if universally - adopted would appear
to provide the U.S. government with a nearly ideal solution to a
crisis that has arisen in connection to the Internet.


The crisis arises from the fact that cheap secure encryption
software and now hardware has become globally available for the
first time; from Albania to Zaire everyone who owns a computer can
guarantee their own privacy. In essence - the cat is already out
of the bag and a desperate effort is underway to stuff it back in.


Accepting that a genuine problem exists. Is the Clipper chip
proposal a reasonable solution. If it is not a reasonable solution,
are there other - better approaches. Or, will one have to accept
the fact that the nature of the struggle for advantage thru
technical espionage has changed.
-------------------------------


WHAT ARE THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS AND WHO ARE THE LIKELY
BENEFICIARIES


The Clipper Chip proposal is an excellent solution if you are a
foreign company or nation interested in obtaining competitive
economic advantage over the United States. I expect that foreign
governments will begin lobbying immediately for adoption of the
proposal in the U.S. Here is why.


It will not prevent them from using effective encryption outside
of the U.S.


The United states represents only about 18% of the global market
place but it currently dominates in several hardware and software
cataegories.


These include supercomputers, network software and hardware,
desktop software, cpu chips, most catagories of business software
for all classes of machines.


With adoption of these proposals - each of these categories will
become easier to gain market share in outside of the U.S.
Intel and Microsoft and Novell along with IBM, Thinking Machines
and Wais should all see significant declines in their market share.


Network Service providers like AT&T or Sprint should be easy to
defeat as they try to sell services in external markets.


If similar legislation is also passed in the area of cellular
communications, we can expect to see a dramatic decline in the
market share for Motorola products as well.


In the future as research on encryption techniques comes to a
standstill in the U.S. Foreign firms will be able to develop
optimized encryption standards that will meet the demands for the
emerging Multimedia market. Multimedia vendors seeking product
protection need efficient encryption standards to allow protection
of property rights. Encryption standards that slow down
transmission or minimize the effectiveness of compression
techniques will help quarantee the success of foriegn firms.


SHOULD FORIEGN FIRMS REALLY SPEND MONEY ON LOBBYING.


Yes, despite the past history of success by the intelligence
community in crippling U.S. competitiveness in overseas markets in
areas like desktop computing and database software, and despite
that community's success in making U.S. companies the final
entrants in the Vietnames market and the China market; you can not
count on the continuing willingness of the American people to
accept these impediments.


In addition U.S. passage of this legislation may actual improve the
competitive advantage of a well prepared nation or corporate group.
U.S. history is repleat with examples of trusted individuals who
have used intelligence information for private gain or sold it for
other reasons.


When men like former the multimillionaire Director of the CIA,
William Casey, had to be stopped from using intelligence
information for personal gain by Congress; there are probably few
serious limits the corruptablity of intelligence community staff.
And the clipper chip proposal is based upon trusting the keys to
chip's security system in the hands of low paid bureaucrats. Men
who may include among their ranks individuals like the Walker
Family who sold satelite intelligence secrets to the Russians for
peanuts.


The real danger here is that the U.S. might actually begin work on
improved encryption standards for incorporation in U.S. made
products. Such activity would create market advantage for American
companies.


ISN'T IT A DANGER TO OTHER COUNTRIES AND COMPANIES IF ENCRYPTION
THAT IS NOT BREAKABLE IS IN WIDE USE?


Not really. The Soviet Union and Isreal both managed to coexist
with the United States even though the U.S. was incapable of
breaking their codes. Both countries successfully employed spies
and informants to obtain material and information that was
otherwise protected from decypherment. Both countries shared
intelligence information obtained from the U.S. so this raises the
possibility that foriegn firms could unite in obtaining economic
advantage over the US.


Because plans must be turned into action - existing national
technical means are sufficient to guarantee the physical security
of the U.S.


AREN'T THERE OTHER REAL BENEFITS TO THE US FROM THE ADOPTION OF
SUCH SYSTEMS?


Well, if the U.S. government adopted the clipper chip standard for
all its internal communication. It would be able to gain some
control of untrustworthy employees who wished to use technical
means in subverting the US. People like Jonathan Pollard who simply
physically removed documents from their safe storage sites, would
of course be unaffected. Similarly the Walker family was exposed
only because of a family feud.


WHAT ABOUT ORGANIZED CRIME ETC.


The US government's inability to prevent the ongoing success of
organized crime despite the availability of wire taps and
informants is a testimony to the intelligence of these criminal
organizations. Implementation of the clipper chip proposals will
not result in any change in their successful strategies for
avoiding monitoring.


ISN'T THERE ANYONE WHO WILL DEFINITELY BENEFIT FROM THIS?


Yes, some company will get the contract for these chips.



Sam Sternberg <samsam () vm1 yorku ca>