IP: Crypto -- "Good news for Canadians, I think..."

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

Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 10:22:29 -0800
From: Martin Janzen <janzen () idacom hp com>




On the mailing list for the "Electronic Frontier Canada" (similar to, but
not a part of EFF), David Jones (djones () insight dcss McMaster CA) writes:
>      Feds want encryption; Police opposition ignored.
>
> The federal government wants its employees, and Canadians in general,
> to use strong, public-key encryption.  Yes, the same encryption methods
> that American law enforcement is so uptight about.  The same encryption
> that Canadian cops want to avoid, so they can continue to eavesdrop.
>
> It's summarized in a recent Ottawa Citizen article:
>
>        gopher://insight.mcmaster.ca/00/org/efc/media/citizen.13feb96
>
> You may recall the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP)
> have voiced their opposition to any encryption of communications unless
> police had access to a "backdoor" last summer.
>
>        gopher://insight.mcmaster.ca/00/org/efc/law/cacp.24aug95
>
> In Canada, it looks like the right to privacy of telecommunications
> might take precedence over the police interest in snooping to catch
> criminals.




I won't repost the entire article here, but here are some highlights:


  - The system is initially intended to secure email between federal
    government employees.  Deployment is expected to begin next year.


  - Key management is decentralized; each department hands out its own keys.


  - Top-secret messages will be encoded using "palm-sized computer cards"
    (presumably some kind of PCMCIA device).


  - The Communications Security Establishment (~= NSA) helped to design
    the system, and claims that it's "more sophisticated than existing
    public versions".


    (This is the part that still worries me a bit, even though EFC's
    David Jones is quoted as saying that he has no concerns.  Will the
    algorithms be published?  Also, why develop a new, untested system --
    why not just buy the thing from RSA, Viacrypt, etc.?  Stay tuned...)


  - There's a great quote from Bob Little, deputy secretary of financial
    and information management for the Treasury Board:  "[The CSE] don't
    have access to the keys . . . and never will.  We did it to avoid
    the American experience with the Clipper Chip."


  - The RCMP (~= FBI) is not amused.




All in all, it sounds like a positive development for once.



--
Martin Janzen           janzen () idacom hp com