IP: Re: FBI gets cash to spend on anti-encryption research

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2001 09:13:06 -0400
>From: Brent Hunsaker <brent.hunsaker@usa.alcatel.com>
>To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
>Subject: Re: IP: FBI gets cash to spend on anti-encryption research
>
>David,
>The first bullet is discussing code breaking. It will go to the NSA (which is
>the only agency that can purchase encryption/decryption/code-breaking devices
>for the US government) for the technology they need to break the encryption
>coding used on the internet. My guess is that they are finding code that they
>cannot break. Possibly hard encrypted messages. Industrial espionage has been
>wide spread in the US since the end of the cold war. The internet is becoming
>the best transmission medium available.
>
>Just another thought, there are portions of the telecomm system where the
>telecomm company encrypts blocks or trunks of telephony and data. This has 
>been
>done for the US govenment for decades. I would expect that other countries are
>doing the same. This is going beyond PGP and the little guy or gal. When
>industrial spys are communicating with each other within the borders of 
>the USA
>the only agency that can monitor is the FBI.
>
>For the second bullet my guess is for the next generation of monitoring 
>system.
>$7M will bring them up to a level to start policing the internet just a little
>bit better. The new generation of telecomm equipement is beyond the technology
>they have. The SONET rings in the field are now being upgraded to OC-192 
>rates.
>The technology we are deploying into the field closer to the home and through
>out the system is out stripping their current monitoring technologies. When we
>start deploying Fiber-to-the-User there will no longer be a wire to tap into.
>At that time phone channels will be caried by ATM cells or IP.
>
>If they do not upgrade, they will lose what access they have now.  In the 
>scifi
>movies where the police officer has to break into the fiber trunk to monitor,
>decrypt and record communications has become reality.
>
>Brent Hunsaker



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