The RISKS Digest
Volume 14 Issue 53

Thursday, 22nd April 1993

Forum on Risks to the Public in Computers and Related Systems

ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy, Peter G. Neumann, moderator

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Contents

CLIPPER CHIP
Don Alvarez
Carl Ellison
Steve Holzworth
Keith Hanlan
Derek Beatty
Lars-Henrik Eriksson
Kristoffer Eriksson
Jay Schmidgall
Dave Weingart
Jim Sims
C. Martin
Neil W Rickert
Mark Seecof
Info on RISKS (comp.risks)

Re: RISKS DIGEST 14.52

Don Alvarez <dla@athena.princeton.edu>
Thu, 22 Apr 1993 15:03:41 GMT
Dorothy Denning's summary on the clipper chip was very helpful, but it
leaves a good deal up in the air.  Fortunately, if you are willing to
work on the assumption that the NSA is good at what they do, you can
fill in a fair number of details by reading between the lines.

To begin with, based on what she has written, it is trivial to prevent law
enforcement from decrypting your messages.  I'll explain what I mean by that,
and then I'll make a guess at what prevents you from doing so.

Once a session key K is agreed upon by the users, the chip computes
two values which are transmitted over the telephone line:

(1) Message stream:   E[M ; K]              (Where M is the message)
(2) Escrow field:     E[{E[K ; U],N}; F]    (Where F is the Family Key,
                                                   N is the Serial Number,
                                               and U is the Unit Key)

Law enforcement uses F to obtain N, which points to U in a two-part database.
Knowing U allows Law enforcement to obtain K, and then to decrypt M.

Users simply compute M = D[E[M; K]; K] to decrypt the message.

The summary isn't very specific, but it sounds like the message stream is
transmitted first, followed by the escrow field.  Surely this can't be the
case, because all one needs to do is hang up at the appropriate point in the
call and prevent the transmission of the escrow field.  The other user doesn't
need the escrow field to do the decryption, but law enforcement has no other
way of obtaining K, even if they already know N,U, and F.

Now, I have enough faith in the NSA's skills to trust that you can't pass the
message to the user without also passing the escrow field, but I'd like to see
that in writing.  My guess is that the protocol requires the escrow field to
be transmitted first, and then the chaining mechanisms in the algorithm
prevent the receiver from decoding the message without first having fed the
escrow field into their chip.  On the other hand, if the protocol is up to the
end user, then I'll just send the escrow last, and ..oops.. ran out of
quarters, have to hang up now.  As is so often the case in cryptography, the
protocol is as important as the algorithm, and so far we know even less about
the protocol than we do about the algorithm.

Following on this line of thinking (ie that NSA is good at what they do),
we can deduce a few more things about how wiretaps are handled.

First, who knows F? If the cop on the street knows F then it quickly
becomes so widely known that everyone knows it and you might as well send
the serial number in the clear.  Ergo only the escrow agents know F.

Second, what information does law enforcement get from the escrow agents?
Ideally, law enforcement only gets K, the session key governing the
conversation for which they have a court order.  Unfortunately, in order for
law enforcement to get *only* K (and not U), the escrow agents must get
together and secretly combine U1 and U2 so that they can unwrap K and give it
to law enforcement.  But then the escrow agents would also know K, and they
would be able to decrypt messages themselves.  That's just a very short step
away from the omniscient big-brother which the multiple-escrower scheme was
designed to prevent.  The escrow agents must not allowed to exchange keys with
each other.  Ergo, law enforcement must assemble U itself in order to find out
K.  This means that law enforcement now knows the key to unlock every session
key ever used on this phone.

Things are starting to look bad, but what about F?  We never really figured
out what F was for, we just said that only the escrow agents know F.  Well,
now we know what F is for.  Even if law enforcement knows U, they still can't
read messages without court orders, because they can't obtain E[K;U] without
knowing F, and only escrow knows F.

Something (probably the chaining) keeps users honest.  F keeps law enforcement
honest.  What keeps the escrow agents honest?  That's still a good question,
and hopefully the answer is something other than "Their strong moral
character."  I suspect, however, that their strong moral character is all
we'll have to work with.

-Don Alvarez  Dept. of Physics, Princeton Univ.  dla@athena.princeton.edu


RE: (Denning) THE CLIPPER CHIP: A TECHNICAL SUMMARY

<Carl_Ellison@vos.stratus.com>
Thu, 22 Apr 93 12:40 EDT
>Once the session key K is established, the Clipper Chip is used to
>encrypt the conversation or message stream M (digitized voice).  The
>telephone security device feeds K and M into the chip to produce two
>values:

>   E[M; K], the encrypted message stream, and
>   E[E[K; U] + N; F], a law enforcement field ,

Note that if the chip or the user were to choose random numbers K1..Kn
and compute

     K = K1 xor K2 xor ... xor Kn

the chip could transmit

   E[E[K1; U1] + N; F], a law enforcement field for escrow agency 1 ,
   E[E[K2; U2] + N; F], a law enforcement field for escrow agency 2 ,
   . . .
   E[E[Kn; Un] + N; F], a law enforcement field for escrow agency n ,

(where U1 .. Un are the individual escrow keys)

then the wiretapper would have to show the court order for each message key,
not just once.  As designed, however, once the LE agent has acquired U, she
has access to all messages, past and future, using that chip.  She can even
sell U to any outfit willing to pay for it, if she is so inclined.  The NSA
can't be less bright in cryptographic protocol design than I am.  I must
assume that this security bug was intended as a feature.

There could also be more than 2 escrow agencies — so that, for example, the
New York Times, the Washington Post, the Democratic National Committee and the
Republican National Committee could all be escrow agencies — could all see
the choice of wiretap targets (both through warrant and through so-called
"national security" grounds) — could notice any patterns (like Nixon's enemy
list) and could blow the whistle if the government were abusing its wiretap
ability.  In this case, global use of encryption and key escrow would give us
a marginal amount of increased citizen rights (while taking away a large
right).

Of course, this is a moot point, intended for those of us who like to think
about cryptographic protocols.  The real point is that cryptography has always
been created and used by private individuals, whether or not governments also
use it.  It is not used primarily by lawbreakers — and those criminals who do
use it will continue to and will ignore key registration.  It has legitimate
users, predominantly, and they have legitimate reasons to keep a key as secret
as they know how, even if the government doesn't like it.  Since the
government has no right to read all our files and communications (eg., e-mail
love letters I might write), this shouldn't matter to it.

Key registration is a totally new idea in cryptography, is a major erosion of
our rights and must not be tolerated, even on a voluntary basis.  The RISK
here is that after enough years of partial voluntary registration, the FBI
would go to Congress with an example (perhaps even made up) of some drug
selling, snuff movie making operator of a BBS who lets minors view pornography
-- who uses cryptography without key registration — and will call for key
registration to be made law, citing examples of voluntary cooperation in order
to claim that "law abiding citizens don't believe that secrecy of keys is a
fundamental right".


With the coming rise both of distributed systems and of wireless computer
components, cryptography is about to move from a cute toy which some of us
play with to an absolute necessity.  If we give away the right to privacy
in crypto keys, now while there are only a few of us affected, we will soon
discover that everyone is affected and Orwell's society is that much closer.


Re: THE CLIPPER CHIP: A TECHNICAL SUMMARY

Steve Holzworth <sch@unx.sas.com>
Thu, 22 Apr 1993 16:40:13 GMT
I don't claim to be up on crypto, but it seems to me that once the
"authorized tap" has been performed once, the agency in question now
has a copy of the desired keys. They can use these keys at ANY time in the
future to decrypt communications between these two parties (without having
to go through the discomfort of obtaining a new court order). So a new,
parallel database of key pairs will gradually evolve.

Steve Holzworth sch@unx.sas.com SAS Institute - Open Systems R&D  Cary, N.C.


Re: THE CLIPPER CHIP: A TECHNICAL SUMMARY

"Keith (K.P.) Hanlan" <keithh@bnr.ca>
Thu, 22 Apr 1993 14:16:00 +0000
Dorothy Denning writes a good coherent summary of the clipper chip.  Thanks.

Dorothy writes:
> The law enforcement field is decrypted by law enforcement after
> an authorized wiretap has been installed.

I have one outstanding question that I haven't seen asked yet.  Is there a
time component in the encryption key?  Since wiretaps are presumably
authorized for certain time periods with both start and end dates, it should
not be possible to decrypt an illegally monitored message.

This also suggests a way to subvert the law enforcement decryption: Would it
not be possible fake the encryption device's sense of time?  If this were the
case, and time is in fact a part of the encryption key, then the message would
still be impossible for the law to decrypt.  On the other hand, if time is not
part of the key, perhaps a defendant could argue that the tapped and decrypted
message was tapped before the wiretap was authorized.  How could the police
prove otherwise?  This problem exists without encryption so I suppose it has
been addressed.  But my understanding of U.S.  law is that even if evidence is
incriminating, if it is illegally obtained, it will be considered
inadmissible.  (I don't think that this is the case in Canada for example.)

A second, unrelated question is this: How difficult is it monitor a
high-capacity trunk, (say a fibre cable), for encrypted messages.  I can just
see, using my special Sneakers-influenced "Eyes of Paranoia", some nameless
agency looking for work monitoring 10,000 lines just to see who was encrypting
stuff.  Heck, if it is encrypted, it must be interesting right?

Keith Hanlan KeithH@bnr.ca Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada 613-765-4645


Clipper Chip: algorithm vs. implementation

Derek Beatty <beatty@cs.cmu.edu>
Thu, 22 Apr 1993 09:42:45 -0400 (EDT)
Some of the debate here on the Clipper Chip has focused on the secrecy
surrounding the encryption algorithm.  I'd like to point out that not only
must the algorithm be secure, but so must its implementation.  I suspect that
most contributors to RISKS are less than familiar with the various ways that
VLSI chips are validated---that probably goes for many (non-NSA) cryptography
experts as well.  It seems entirely possible to me that an intentional or
unintentional back door could be left in the silicon.  For example, if the
chip is scan-testable, then it might be possible to scan the keys out through
the test path---potentially yielding U, "an 80-bit secret key that unlocks all
messages encrypted with the chip"!  (Or maybe the chip's not testable---why
doesn't that make me feel any better?)  The point is not the particular
details of a possible attack; rather it is the distinction between an
algorithm and a circuit.  I conduct research on the formal verification of
digital circuits, and I am sure that algorithms and circuits are separated by
a large gap---who knows what lurks therein?

(And personally, was the name chosen to try to catch our moderator off guard?)

Derek_Beatty@cmu.edu   ABD   Comp Sci, CMU, 5000 Forbes, Pgh, PA 15213 USA


THE CLIPPER CHIP: A TECHNICAL SUMMARY

<lhe@sics.se>
Thu, 22 Apr 93 08:51:38 +0200
denning@cs.cosc.georgetown.edu (Dorothy Denning) writes:
   The Clipper Chip contains a classified single-key 64-bit block
   encryption algorithm called "Skipjack."

I don't know if I would feel comfortable entrusting sensitive data to
a *classified* encryption algorithm. What is the rationale for that?

If the algorithm was made public, any weaknesses would be discovered
in time. If it is classified, weaknesses may never be known, or known
only to the parties who have access to the classified information.
Also, if you are the paranoid kind: How do you know that the algorithm
isn't made deliberately weak in some way?

Lars-Henrik Eriksson, Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Box 1263
S-164 28 KISTA, SWEDEN  lhe@sics.se   +46 8 752 15 09   Fax: +46 8 751 72 30


Re: The Clipper Chip [RISKS 14.52]

Kristoffer Eriksson; Peridot AB <ske@pkmab.se>
22 Apr 93 09:25:43 MES (Thu)
I just wonder one thing: why would _anyone_ prefer to use Clipper Chip
encryption over other alternatives, when all it buys you, compared to the
alternatives, is that it allows the authorities to tap your conversations
(whether they need appropriate court order to do so or not) ??

I fear the only solution to that may be the outlawing of all other
encryption alternatives that do not include the same "feature".

Kristoffer Eriksson, Peridot Konsult AB, Stallgatan 2, S-702 26 Oerebro, Sweden
 +46 19-33 13 00  Fax:   +46 19-33 13 30  e-mail: ske@pkmab.se


Clipper Chips: After the tap

Jay Schmidgall <shmdgljd+@rchland.ibm.com>
Thu, 22 Apr 1993 07:24:50 -0500 (CDT)
So, at this point the law enforcement agency (LEA) has U1 and U2?
Presumably, then, at any point subsequent to this and without benefit of
contact with the key escrow agents, the LEA can tap and decode the phone
line, providing the tappee doesn't get a new clipper chip.

I would think one of the first things the LEA would do would be to build
up a database of known U1 and U2 values; also, the U1 and U2 values
received from the key escrow agents are likely to be stored [recorded]
somewhere other than the original secure FAX paper — given the
pervasiveness of our friend the computer, it is as likely to be on a
computer as not, and then a short hop to a computer attached to a
network, mix and match a few crackers and presto! a pirate BBS with U1
and U2 values for anyone from Joe Blow to your neighbor down the block.

Or is this an overreaction?

Perhaps a mandatory "You've been tapped, change your keys" scheme could
be implemented along with this; after the authorization for the tap is
canceled, the tappee would automatically receive new keys? chips? to
ensure secure communication once again.

: jay          jay@vnet.ibm.com    My opinions and ideas, not my employer's.
: shmdgljd@rchland.vnet.ibm.com


Risks in encryption session startup?

<phydeaux@cumc.cornell.edu>
Thu, 22 Apr 1993 09:34:40 -0500
I'll preface this by saying that encryption has never been a big problem in
my particular line of software, so I'm slightly hazy on this.  However,
scanning through the discussions on the Clipper Chip, I came across a general
description of how a session works.  It appears (and someone please correct me
if I'm off the wall here) that two encryption devices, when they initiate a
session, must exchange keys in order to decrypt each others messages.  Great,
but here's my question...what's to stop someone at machine B (who's talking
to machine A) from "recording" the key from machine A when the session is
started?  Since it appears that the key is constant for each chip, machine B
can now _always_ decrypt machine A's messages.

If this is the case, does encryption over a cellular link become worthless?
Already, the phone ID is transmitted, with an enormous black market in the
stolen ID's.  Why not capture that encryption key as it goes out?

Or is there something I'm missing?

73 de Dave Weingart   KB2CWF  phydeaux@cumc.cornell.edu
phydeaux@src4src.linet.org


RISKS DIGEST 14.52

Jim Sims <sims@pdesds1.atg.trc.scra.org>
Thu, 22 Apr 93 11:05:45 EDT
 Being someone outside this (which may be a good feature):

 Seems a whole lot easier to just catch the key K during the
 negotiation between the boxes....

 Then use the black box to reconstruct....

jim


clipper chip is no good

"PGE" <CMARTIN@unode2.nswc.navy.mil>
22 Apr 93 12:30:00 EST
  Like everyone else, I feel I must add my 2 cents on the data encryption
chip.  first, how will this be implemented.  Will everyone get a knock on the
door next tuesday from the telephone company installing our chip?  If not,
then the slow increase in user base will make the technology as useful as
video-phones.  Sure some will get in on the ground floor, but who will they
talk too?  Reminds me of the scene in Repo Man.  The security does no good if
you can't use it.  Second, math.  How many phones in the U.S.A.?  Hundreds of
millions?  Billions?  If 300 chips are made in a run, and a run is say, eight
hours, that is hmmm 500,000,000 phones/300 chips = (about) 1,300,000.  Now for
an average work week, (1,300,000chipruns*2persons)/(40hrs*52weeks) = 1250
person/years of work.  So, we cannot expect this to occur overnight.  So, who
gets to have first dibbs on the technology?  The rich, the powerful, the
government?  If so, not very democratic to me.
  Next, where in the line will the chip be?  I assume the handset which again
kicks up the number of chips needed.  Also the complexity.  I assume that more
bandwidth will be needed to get the data to the handset.  Fiber-optics?  Yeah,
in another ten years.  Data compression?  That can only get you so far.  If you
place the chip elsewhere, the risk exists that someone can tap illegally in
the home.  No messy decryption needed there.
  To me, knowing that the encryption sceme can be broken at will (by the "right
people") does not make me feel secure in using it.  The general public would
most likely use the logic--if this person can decypher this message, why can't
anyone else?  Then wrongly or rightly conclude anyone else can.
  Next, NSA.  Why should I trust them to make the thing secure?  They want
to listen in, that is part of their job.
  Finally, as a chip, it can break.  Burn out.  Well where are you then.  And
where is the government?  Do they need a warrant for every phone you could use,
and have to get new warrants for any new phone you get.  Imagine a criminal
that continually buys phones so that the warrants can't get through in time to
listen in on the conversations.  Do they record all the unintelligible
conversations prior to getting the key?  How much data would this be?  What if
another encryption is found embedded in the first?  How do you prove it is not
a compressed abstract picture for the computer?  I could see a big new news
group forming for abstract art that could be used as a wonderful cover for
secret messages.  Try decyphering that Jackson Pollack.
  The questions just keep coming, and I personally don't like the answers.


Re: The Clipper Chip (Johnson, RISKS-14.51)

Neil W Rickert <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
Thu, 22 Apr 1993 13:10:01 -0500
In Risks Digest 15.51 paj <paj@gec-mrc.co.uk> writes:
>
>The encryption algorithm is secret, but a panel of cryptologists could be
>invited to inspect it.

This secrecy is perhaps the most troubling aspect.

Here are three requirement that would seem essential for general purpose
encryption.

   (1)  The encryption must be so strong that even if the algorithm
    were published, it should be impossible to break the code.
    Otherwise there would always be fear that someone had
    reverse-engineered the chip to discover the algorithm.

   (2)  The algorithm must actually have been published.  For who could
    believe assurances of (1) if the designer were unwilling to
    publish?

   (3)  The encryption/decryption must be readily doable in software.
    For in multiprogramming environments, a hardware implementation
    is inherently dangerous.  A hardware implementation would require
    that user software must transmit the key to the operating system
    for insertion in the device.  This allows too big a window of
    opportunity for operating system modifications to record user
    keys.

By virtue of its secrecy, the Clipper fails these tests.


"key escrow" (Clipper Chip; RISKS 14.51)

Mark Seecof <marks@wimsey.latimes.com>
Thu, 22 Apr 93 12:12:44 -0700
(At the risk of redundancy (with other contributors)):

1. Although gov't press releases and gov't surrogates like Dorothy Denning
keep talking about warrants (actually, they say "proper authorization") for
Clipper keys, the government has never abandoned (and does not even deny) the
practice of conducting warrantless wiretaps for "national security" reasons.
How will keys be obtained to decrypt such intercepts?  My guess--the security
of the "escrow" agencies will be secretly compromised.  And then, the time
will come when the NSA turns over political or criminal information with
little or no "national security/foreign/military intelligence" content to the
FBI, etc.  My fallback guess is that the Skipjack algorithm will have a back
door.

2. The key escrow scheme is a pottery container of fecal matter.  Right now in
California we are enjoying two scandals involving the release, to unauthorized
persons, of "secret" data, by employees of government and private
organizations, in violation of: their employers' policies, their own terms of
employment, state criminal law, and common (civil) law.  These (Anaheim PD
employee release of DMV address info to anti-abortion terrorists; various
people including police employees giving info to an ADL investigator) are
representative, not exhaustive of the problem.  Does anybody remember the
Walker (U.S. Navy) spy scandal of a few years ago?  Walker ring members,
despite vetting by the military (perhaps inefficient, but more thorough than
likely in civilian agencies), exposure to the most severe legal sanctions, and
even the cultural pressures of their military communities, sold out Navy
cipher secrets and keys to actual enemies for fairly small amounts of money.
N.B.: the Walker ring had no ideological motivations.  Anyone who says that
the key escrow scheme will protect the privacy of Clipper users is naive,
stupid, or wicked.  Of course, as someone will point out: "the Walker ring got
caught!"--but catching malefactors will not prevent the harm they do before
they are detected.

3. The assertion that the government should, by rights, be able to decrypt
private communications for "law enforcement" purposes should be challenged.
Privacy advocates should not concede this important debate-framing assumption.
Advances in digital computing have made it possible for ordinary people to use
powerful machine cipher techniques.  But such systems will not prevent police
agents from eavesdropping directly or by various bugging methods.  It may be
(I suspect it is so) that depriving the police of convenient wiretapping might
have little effect over, say, ten years, on their (police) ability to detect
and interfere with criminals.

Mark Seecof <marks@latimes.com>

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