[IIU] Re: [ILUG] FW: ALERT: EU storing all net traffic

[Brian Foster]

  | Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 16:10:45 +0100
  | From: "Anders Holm" <anders.holm at elivefree.net>
  | 
  | Sorry, wasn't clear enough.
  | 
  | "they had to hand over the algorithm to FBI" would in be meaning the
  | algorithm for cracking the keys 'quickly'.. It'll still take them some
  | nice time to do so, but once a key has been cracked, all messages/files
  | belonging to that key can then effectively be decrypted.  [ ... ]

 I suspect what the above is actually referring to is the key recovery
 mechanism present in ``PGP for Business Security'' (and possibly other
 commercial PGP-ish products), and perhaps other such "features".
 these are not, repeat NOT, any sort of practical (computable) key-crack
 algorithm --- the discovery of which, as has already been pointed out,
 would be worthy of a Field Prize (the closest thing there is to a
 mathematics Nobel Prize).

 e.g., see:

  http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/pipermail/ukcrypto/1997-October/000519.html

 and also the ``comp.risks'' archives.

 b.t.w., PGP does not "solve" the problem of traffic analysis (e.g.,
 knowing which sites/persons have exchanged phone/FAX/net(/e-mail)).

cheers!
	-blf-
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