UK's Independent on Clipper as published in the Daily Yomiuri [sent by Japanese IPer]

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

Posted-Date: Fri, 13 May 1994 00:35:31 -0400


from "View from Europe: The Independent", supplement to The Daily
Yomiuri, 5/13/94, page 11a:


SPOOKS ALL SET TO HACK IT ON THE SUPERHIGHWAY


-- Europe fears US plans to let spy agencies monitor electronic mail
for criminial content will be open to abuse, writes LEONARD DOYLE


        A row is brewing between Europe and America over US plans to
allow intelligence agencies to monitor information on computer
channels.
        Washington believes E-mail -- electronic messages travelling
at the speed of light on the information superhighway -- is a conduit
for messages without fear of detection.
        The US plan for a Clipper chip, which lets intelligence
agencies crack encrypted computer messages, has raised fears among
European business that sensitive information would no longer be secret
if it were vetted by the CIA, the FBI, or GCHQ, the British
Government's eavesdropping facility.
        E-mail is rapidly taking over from "snail-mail," as postal
services are dismissively known.
        There are an estimated 20 million users on the worldwide web
of computer networks known as Internet.  But in 10 years it is
predicted 80 percent of trade information will be sent by this method.
        The Clinton administration, concerned that terrorists,
money-launderers, and drug dealers will use E-mail to send encrypted
information to associates, wants to outlaw the use of private
encruption on international computer networks.
        The global censorship plan has run up against opposition from
European and American businesses that use encryption to send sensitive
information.
        In a position paper to a committee of European Union
intelligence experts, which has been obtained by the Independent, the
European organisation representing users of computer security has
rejected the Clinton initiative as "totally unacceptable."
        The statement by the Information Security Business Advisory
Group (Ibag) warns European governments to ignore overtures from the
US government aimed at restricting access to the information
superhighway to users who use encryption that the government agencies
can decode.
        The European position is that "industry needs to know when its
sensitive data has been compromised [by the security services or
others]" and that the US eavesdropping initiative will greatly reduce
the benefits of the information superhighway.  Companies "will be
restricted to a very restricted list of 'approved' algorithms
[encryption methods]" greatly adding to business costs and making
international cooperation difficult.
        Ibag recently informed the senior officials group on
information security that the planned US-style restrictions, or the
even stricter French system under which those using cyphers must
disclose the keys to the authorities, are "totally unacceptable" to
industry.
        The European group has proposed that companies deposit the
keys to their encryption cyphers with "trusted third parties" rather
than with governments.  With this system, when intelligence agencies
want to tap messages, the company will have to be notified.
        Chriss Sund, a computer-security expert, said companies faced
real dangers of economic espionage by governments.
        "There was a general instinct among companies to distrust the
French," he said, who he claimed used government controls on
encryption "to their advantage."
        Stephen Dorril, an expert on the intelligence services, claims
that the US proposal is designed to facilitate economic espionage.
        GCHQ, which has been cooperating hand-in-glove with the US for
the past 50 years, finds itself caught in the middle of this EU-US
dispute.  Britain will eventually have to square cooperation on
intelligence and encryption across the Atlantic with the demands of
its European partners.
        Under the US initiative, use of computer or voice encruption
which cannot readily be hacked into by the secruity services of
cooperating governments will be deemed suspcious and worthy of
surveillance.
        These users will be denied access to the information
superhighway.  The US has decided to replace private encryption with
the Clipper chip.  This enables government agencies to listen in on
conversations and intecept and decode data flows at will.  How
European governments intend to tackle the problem of terrorists and
other criminals using encruption to stay ahead of the law is not
known, but there has traditionally been a close working relationship
between the National Security Agency in the US and the GCHQ in
Britain.
        The clash over encryption could have serious implications for
the development of the information superhighway, which has been hailed
in Brussels and Washington as a way of increasing competitivesness and
delivering a boost to the economics of the industrialised world.
        If European businesses are blocked from using the US
information superhighway because they will not bow to US pressure, the
EU may be forced to develop its own independent system, adding to the
cost and hastening the division of the world into three rival trading
blocs, the US, the EU, and Asia.


Sidebars:


* How E-mail helps criminals avoid detection


  - Today when a user transmits messges in code on the Internet, the
international computer network, government intelligence services
cannot listen in.


  - Modern encryption cannot be cracked but if users are forced to use
the Clipper chip, intelligence services could then eavesdrop.


  - The US has introduce the Clipper chip, a way of encrypting
messages while allowing government intelligence services access to
transmissions.  This is possible through a "key" used to encrypt the
message.  The government holds a duplicate key that allows it to
decode transmissions.


  - Europe is opposed to the Clipper chip because it fears that the
FBI or CIA could target European businesses.  A suggested alternative
is that the "keys" to coded messages should be deposited with a
non-government trusted third party.




* Dangerous traffic on the information superhighway:


  - Terrorism
  - Drug trafficking
  - Neo-Nazi organisations
  - Pornography
  - Industrial espionage
  - Mondey laundering