Re: Wikipedia "Cryptography" reaches Featured Article status

On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:34:53 -0700, "Roger Schlafly"
<rogersc1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Paul Rubin" <http://phr.cx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I consider it believeable too, despite no-assistance having been the
"official" line. I think an encyclopedic treatment has to at least
present the official line, along with any evidence that the official
line is wrong. ...

I emailed Coppersmith yesterday asking about a transcript of his talk.

Coppersmith is not necessarily the last word on the subject.

Yesterday I saw a couple of citations that might be relevant:
<SNIP>
From the very beginning, the NSA had taken an enormous interest in
Project Lucifer. It had even indirectly lent a hand in the development
of the S-box structures. "IBM was involved with the NSA on an ongoing
basis," admitted Alan Konheim, a senior employee at IBM's Yorktown
Heights lab. "They [NSA employees] came up every couple of months to
find out what IBM was doing."
</SNIP>

SOURCE: The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency,
James Bamford, Penguin Books, 1983. ISBN 0 14 00.6748 5. Pages
426-457.Available online http://cryptome.sabotage.org/pp09.htm

Alan Konheim is also quoted saying following
<SNIP>
Alan Konheim, former manager of IBM's Lucifer research project,
recollects, "If they [NSA] had had their way, they would have had 32
bits.... I was told at one time that they wanted 40 bits, and at IBM
we agreed that 40 was not enough."
</SNIP>

Then there is an alternative story given with a quote for the reasons
for NSA to abandon the support for DSA and why It was still allowed
for banking sector. sorry long quote...
<SNIP>
The controversy over DES eventually subsided, but in late 1985 NSA
suddenly and gracelessly abandoned the system. Directly contradicting
years of reassurances, Walter Deely, NSA's deputy director for
communications security, told Science that he "wouldn't bet a plugged
nickel on the Soviet Union not breaking [DES]." Said Barton O'Brien,
sales manager for RSA Data Security, "People in the industry feel
betrayed." And according to Herb Bright of Computation Planning
Associates, quite an uproar ensued in the normally quiet halls of the
American National Standards Institute when NSA announced its new
ciphers. Bankers were particualarly upset, since they were comm of
encrypting electronic funds transfers. NSA was later compelled to
announce that DES would remain certified for such transfers. NSA's new
shift raises even more issues. The agency has still declined to
declassify evidence that would settle the question of DES's strength.
If an avenue of cryptoanalytic attack has been found, then isn't NSA
wrong to let banks continue using DES? And if the problem is a
brute-force attack, then isn't it a consequence of the reduced key
length? Why not just make the key longer? NSA officials say they don't
want to trust the rising volume of sensitive data to DES, because all
of its major elements except the criteria for S-box design have been
widely published.
</SNIP>

Source for above two 'SNIPs': Dr. Hugo P. Tolmes.(1987) Tolmes News
Service November issue (5). Available online
http://www.etext.org/CuD/TNS/tns05 Edited from / (Text likely based
on) August/September 1987 issue of Technology Review

Juuso Hukkanen
www.tele3d.com
(to reply by e-mail set addresses month and year to correct)
.

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