huridocs-tech Encryption software

Dear list members,

I thought the article may interest those who have followed the debate on
encryption software.

Best wishes,

-Frank

++++++++++++++++++
June 10, 1999
The New York Times on the Web
Encryption Products Found to Grow in
Foreign Markets

By JOHN MARKOFF

Commercial data-scrambling technology that is made outside the United
States has become significantly more available in the last 18 months,
according to researchers at George Washington University.

The researchers' report, which is to be presented today in testimony
before the Senate Commerce Committee, is part of a growing body of
evidence suggesting that the Government's efforts to restrict the spread
of "strong encryption" technology for secret electronic communications
have largely failed.

"The Government must acknowledge that there are foreign products, and it
must concede that they are of comparable quality to U.S. technology," said
Bruce Heiman, legislative counsel for Americans for Computer Privacy, the
Washington-based computer industry lobbying group that financed the study.

The Government has long imposed export restrictions on encryption
technologies, invoking national security and crime prevention concerns.

Federal officials have argued that scrambled messages would improve the
ability of terrorists and other criminals to organize and plan illegal
operations.

The new data, though, indicate that 805 encryption products are now
available in 35 countries outside the United States -- a 22 percent
increase since December 1997.

Moreover, 167 products are based on encryption algorithms considered too
strong to be cracked by even the most powerful computers. 

"In addition to the absolute increase in the number of products, we've
also found that six new countries have companies that are now selling
encryption technology," said Lance Hoffman, director of the Cyberspace
Policy Institute at George Washington University.

He pointed to companies like Cybernetica in Estonia that use the United
States export restrictions as a marketing tool.

"Cybernetica advertises: 'Strong crypto. Long keys. No export
restrictions,' " he said. 

The report also asserts that the United States has lost its monopoly on
the basic mathematical technologies underlying data encryption.

For example, of the 15 algorithms now being considered by the National
Institute of Standards for a new American encryption standard, 10 have
been developed outside the United States. 

The report does not offer evidence of actual use of encryption systems
abroad. But Mr. Hoffman said researchers had compiled material suggesting
that the most powerful encryption software was now readily accessible
internationally.

"I'm holding in my hands a computer magazine we found on a French
newsstand," he said in a phone interview yesterday. The publication,
Magazine Dot Net, included a CD-ROM with encryption programs including
Pretty Good Privacy and a program called Scramdisk that includes advanced
encryption algorithms like DES, Triple DES, Blowfish and Idea -- any of
which would present formidable challenges to code breakers in the Federal
Government. 

Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company 



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