From msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!news.funet.fi!news.eunet.fi!anon.penet.fi Wed Jan 26 23:00:32 1994 Message-ID: <165314Z25011994@anon.penet.fi> Path: msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!EU.net!news.funet.fi!news.eunet.fi!anon.penet.fi Newsgroups: sci.crypt From: an62770@anon.penet.fi (Bloodnet) (S.Boxx) X-Anonymously-To: sci.crypt Organization: Anonymous contact service Reply-To: an62770@anon.penet.fi Date: Tue, 25 Jan 1994 16:43:50 UTC Subject: S.Walker on RSA Conference Lines: 109 Notes from RSA Data Security Conference Stephen Walker Trusted Information Systems January 18, 1994 Over 400 people attended the third RSA Data Security Conference on January 12-14, 1994, at the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City, CA. William Murray, of Deloitte & Touche, gave the keynote presentation in which he described the major developments in cryptography in this century. He stated that cryptography is now cheap enough to be used by default but warned that the quantity of information that could benefit from use of cryptography is going up faster than its use. He cited "ambivalent government policies" as the main impediment to wide use of cryptography but added that these issues will not be decided by government but by the public, as individuals buy specific cryptographic products. Over a dozen major companies announced a wide array of products that are now or will soon be available using RSA technologies. Among them were Hewlett-Packard, National Semiconductor, Apple, McCaw Cellular, and Novell. A Cryptographers Expert Panel headed by Peter Neumann came to the tentative conclusion that the best follow-on to the Data Encryption Standard (DES) may well be triple DES (in the encrypt- decrypt-encrypt mode). There would be no need to search for a new standard. The fifteen or more years of confidence building analysis already applied to DES would be immediately applicable. The extra cost of running triple DES could be recovered in improved hardware speeds. Following a question as to how to provide a means for recovering encrypted data for which the key has been lost (the locksmith function), it was pointed out that there is a big difference between encryption used for data communications and that used for data storage. The assumption is that encrypted messages in transit have little value since if they are lost they can be re- sent. Encrypted data in storage, on the other hand, has great value. The cryptographic community has not spent enough effort developing techniques for these storage issues. This is a major topic that cryptographers will have to tackle in the future. In a Government panel, Lynn McNulty of NIST summarized the status of NIST's standards efforts: - DES recertified for five years, - FIPS 140-1, Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules has been approved, and - Nothing to say on the Digital Signature Standard (DSS) or the Escrowed Encryption Standard, but perhaps something will happen soon. Bruce Heiman, of Preston Gates, summarized the industry objections to the present government export rules, and Whit Diffie, standing in for Clint Brooks, of NSA, who could not attend, gave a briefing on what he thought Clint might have wanted to say concerning the national security side of the cryptography argument. Dave Sobel, of CPSR, in discussing the Clipper initiative, stated that he did not believe that Congress intended in the Computer Security Act of 1987 that NIST put forth a classified encryption algorithm for protecting the public's unclassified communications. He also brought out several Constitutional arguments regarding Clipper. As a first amendment issue, he cited problems with any government activity that attempts to regulate how we communicate. As the fourth amendment issue, in answering the question "Can the government seek to ensure its ability to collect information by imposing new restrictions such as key escrow?", he stated a basic premise of the Bill of Rights that, to protect average citizens from an overzealous government, "law enforcement is supposed to be difficult." As a fifth amendment issue regarding the prohibition against self incrimination, he stated that key escrow amounts to a surrender of this right in order to communicate. Steve Kent, of BBN, described the ACM-sponsored Cryptographic Policy Panel, which started last fall and will issue a report "mid-year." The panel will not issue recommendations but, rather, a better articulation of the issues, attempting to separate facts, opinions, and future speculations. Rumors flowed freely that "within two weeks" the government would proceed with the licensing of the Digital Signature Algorithm to Public Key Partners. This would result in the promulgation of the DSS inspite of overwhelming public comment opposing it. Rumors aside, it is clear from this conference that a substantial portion of the market place has decided to use RSA-based public key cryptography in a wide spectrum of generally available products. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To find out more about the anon service, send mail to help@anon.penet.fi. Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized, and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned. Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to admin@anon.penet.fi.