Reply From: joey miller <omi@remorse.org>
this is sort of interesting. i have a paper (skipjack.txt, lemme know if
anyone wants it), dated 1993, and written by a team of guys from AT&T,
Sandia labs, Amperif, Georgetown Univ, etc, and it's basically the first
(as far as 1993 is concerned), outsiders review of skipjack, and in it,
they conclude basically that skipjack is a strong algorithm, immune to a
lot of cryptanalytic attacks, but the classified nature of it must remain,
otherwise people would be able to remove the LEAF (key escrow stuff)
portion, yet still have a rather strong encryption that is still
compatible with other (standard, with the key escrowing enabled) skipjack
devices/etc ... now, this makes me believe the release of the source is
either a good thing, as it can be used as the basis for a better algorithm
w/out key escrow, or that the gov't has finally given up on the Clipper
chip, and anything else based on Skipjack...
joey
> Forwarded From: "Jay D. Dyson" <jdyson@techreports.jpl.nasa.gov>
> Originally From: John Young <jya@pipeline.com>
>
> Thanks to Ed Roback, NIST:
>
> http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun1998/b06231998_bt316-98.html
>
> DoD Press Release, June 23, 1998:
>
> No. 316-78
> IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> June 23, 1998
> (703)695-0192(media)
> (703)697-5737(public/industry)
>
> ENCRYPTION FORMULAS DECLASSIFIED
>
> The Department of Defense today announced the decision by the National
> Security Agency to declassify both the Key Exchange Algorithm and the
> SKIPJACK encryption algorithm used in the FORTEZZA(tm) personal computer
> card. FORTEZZA(tm) provides security at the desktop in the Defense Message
> System and other DoD applications. This marks the first time that the NSA
> has declassified such information and made it commercially available.
>
> This declassification is an essential part of the Department of Defense's
> efforts to work with commercial industry in developing reasonably priced
> computer protection products. This declassification decision will enable
> industry to develop software and smartcard based security products, which
> are interoperable with FORTEZZA(tm). The availability of such products
> will enhance the protection of DoD's sensitive but unclassified and
> critical non-mission communications.
>
> The decision to release SKIPJACK (an 80 bit encryption algorithm that is
> not extensible to higher key lengths) and KEA (a 1024 bit key exchange
> algorithm) is restricted to these particular algorithms, and does not
> apply to other classified NSA algorithms. The SKIPJACK and KEA algorithms
> and their source codes have been declassified pursuant to Executive Order
> 12958.
>
> Vendors interested in obtaining more information on this matter should
> contact the National Security Agency Public Affairs Office at
> 301-688-6524.
>
> [End]
-o-
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Received on Mon Jun 29 10:24:59 1998