9.9.1. The Clipper Proposal
- A bombshell was dropped on April 16, 1993. A few of us saw
it coming, as we'd been debating...
9.9.2. "How long has the government been planning key escrow?"
- since about 1989
- ironically, we got about six months advance warning
- my own "A Trial Balloon to Ban Encryption" alerted the
world to the thinking of D. Denning....she denies having
known about key escorw until the day before it was
announced, which I find implausible (not calling her a
liar, but...)
+ Phil Karn had this to say to Professor Dorothy Denning,
several weeks prior to the Clipper announcement:
- "The private use of strong cryptography provides, for the
very first time, a truly effective safeguard against this
sort of government abuse. And that's why it must continue
to be free and unregulated.
- "I should credit you for doing us all a very important
service by raising this issue. Nothing could have lit a
bigger fire under those of us who strongly believe in a
citizens' right to use cryptography than your proposals
to ban or regulate it. There are many of us out here who
share this belief *and* have the technical skills to turn
it into practice. And I promise you that we will fight
for this belief to the bitter end, if necessary." [Phil
Karn, 1993-03-23]
-
-
9.9.3. Technically, the "Escrowed Encryption Standard," or EES. But
early everyone still calls it "Clipper, " even if NSA
belatedly realized Intergraph's won product has been called
this for many years, a la the Fairchild processor chip of the
same name. And the database product of the same name. I
pointed this out within minutes of hearing about this on
April 16th, 1993, and posted a comment to this effect on
sci.crypt. How clueless can they be to not have seen in many
months of work what many of us saw within seconds?
9.9.4. Need for Clipper
9.9.5. Further "justifications" for key escrow
+ anonymous consultations that require revealing of
identities
- suicide crisis intervention
- confessions of abuse, crimes, etc. (Tarasoff law)
- corporate records that Feds want to look at
+ Some legitimate needs for escrowed crypto
- for corporations, to bypass the passwords of departed,
fired, deceased employees,
9.9.6. Why did the government develop Clipper?
9.9.7. "Who are the designated escrow agents?"
- Commerce (NIST) and Treasury (Secret Service).
9.9.8. Whit Diffie
- Miles Schmid was architect
+ international key escrow
- Denning tried to defend it....
9.9.9. What are related programs?
9.9.10. "Where do the names "Clipper" and "Skipjack" come from?
- First, the NSA and NIST screwed up big time by choosing the
name "Clipper," which has long been the name of the 32-bit
RISC processor (one of the first) from Fairchild, later
sold to Intergraph. It is also the name of a database
compiler. Most of us saw this immediately.
-
+ Clippers are boats, so are skipjacks ("A small sailboat
having a
- bottom shaped like a flat V and vertical sides" Am
Heritage. 3rd).
- Suggests a nautical theme, which fits with the
Cheseapeake environs of
- the Agency (and small boats have traditionally been a way
for the
+ Agencies to dispose of suspected traitors and spies).
-
- However, Capstone is not a boat, nor is Tessera, so the
trend fails.
By Tim May, see README
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