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The Walsh Report
CHAPTER 3
THE DIRECTION AND IMPACT OF ENCRYPTION
3.1 The direction
3.1.1 The ability to sketch confidently the direction of encryption
would be a very marketable talent in the IT industry. Few are prepared to be
expansive in their predictions, but some trends or tendencies have emerged.
On one point all seem agreed - when personal computers are sold with
standard software packages which offer a pull-down encryption facility,
there will be wide use of encryption. There are plenty of encryption systems
and applications available commercially and in the public domain. The volume
has increased significantly over the past three years but not the variety.
Commercial and private interest has principally been in the data storage
area, with limited incursion into computer to computer communications.
Criminal intelligence from law enforcement agencies overseas indicates the
larger narcotics suppliers are using such encrypted links.
3.1.2 Likely developments over the next few years? Cryptography in
modems, currently restricted by export restrictions; financial smart-cards
with complete encryption which will defy transaction tracking; a continuing
trend from encryption software programs to hardware-based systems; and
always more speed. In the same period, communications will continue to
become faster and cheaper. Relaxation of United States export controls would
see systems with quality algorithms and long keys surge on to the market.
There is little doubt the combination of these developments will see a major
slow-down in the 'reading' capacity of the Sigint community for a period.
How long that period may be and how it may be overcome are issues to be
discussed in a framework of more sensitivity than the nature of this review
permits.
3.1.3 And then there is quantum cryptography. Some argue it is the next
wave, others dismiss it as fantasy. Gilles Brassard spoke on the subject at
a cryptanalytical conference organised by the Queensland University of
Technology in July 1995. He said quantum cryptography harnesses Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle from quantum mechanics to allow two parties who have
never met and who share no secret information beforehand to communicate in
absolute secrecy under the nose of an adversary, regardless of her computing
power. This is achieved by the exchange of very tenuous signals that consist
on the average of one-tenth of one photon per pulse. Prototypes have been
built that work over a distance of ten kilometres of optical fibre. 20 The
optimists suggest commercial application is 15-20 years away, the sceptics
argue it is light years
3.1.4 The short judgement of likely encryption developments may be
summed up in three words which are an unintended parody of the Olympic
motto: stronger, faster, cheaper.
3.2 On Law enforcement and national security
3.2.1 There is already considerable evidence of encryption being used
in the areas of organised crime, narcotics, pornography, illegal gaming for
storing data. Criminal intelligence indicates the larger narcotics
syndicates overseas already employ encrypted computer links (e-mail and
telnet), but very few communications applications have been detected in
Australia.
[para 3.2.2 not available]
3.2.3 The telephone system is being used by criminal elements to send
data from point to point and these exchanges are sometimes encrypted. The
Review was given virtually no indication of voice communications being
encrypted, though as early as 1991, an Australian company was importing
voice encryption for PSTN circuits. 22 Considerable concern about hacking
and phreaking was evinced, and evidence to support that concern, including
attacks on law enforcement agencies own data bases. While the expected
security rules that there should be no PSTN connection with the data bases
apply, the reality is back-doors can be engineered by those with intimate
knowledge of the systems. These activities are, however, outside the Terms
of Reference of this Review.
[para 3.2.4 not available]
3.2.5 In a speech in early February, 1996 an American academic,
prominent on law and order issues, said:
The widespread availability of unbreakable encryption coupled with
anonymous services could lead to a situation where practically all
communications are immune from lawful interception and documents from
lawful search and seizure, and where all electronic transactions are
beyond the reach of any government regulation or oversight. The
consequences of this to public safety and social and economic stability
could be devastating. 24
3.2.6 Such an analysis of the medium-term future could be seen as much
advocacy of the American model of key escrow as a depiction of an
environment where such a model would offer attraction.
3.2.7 As the assessment is likely to be recycled, because of the weight
accorded Dr Denning's views in the encryption debate, it has to be said it
reflects either sudden and unreported change in the American scene or an
exuberant use of the subjunctive tense. Only eight months earlier, in April
1994, Vice Admiral John M McConnell, Director of the National Security
Agency, told the United States Senate's Judiciary Committee's Sub-Committee
on Technology and the Law his agency's continuous monitoring of
communications worldwide showed little was being encrypted. 25
3.2.8 A speech given by Louis Freeh, Director of the FBI, in late 1995
has been relied on by American conservative advocates to buttress their
point of view. 26 He argued encryption should be viewed as a public safety
issue, noting the Bureau was 'increasingly' being 'impeded' in its mission,
not just in communications but data storage as well. He cited a terrorist
case based in the Philippines which involved a plan to blow up a United
States airliner as well as a plan to assassinate the Pope, a computer hacker
and a child pornographer. There has been no public reference to new cases -
surprising if 12 months ago the FBI was being impeded from performing its
functions.
3.2.10 National statistics are not available for Australia but partial
figures and the impression of those work-in. in the technical areas of law
enforcement indicate we remain, fortunately, yet some distance from
Denning's vision of Armageddon.
3.3 The Statistical Vacuum
3.3.1 Regrettably, many judgements in a Review such as this must rely
on anecdotal evidence. There is no reliable statistical data and the same
privation will limit future related inquiries and affect, if not flaw,
policy development. There is no requirement on carriers to report the
take-up rate of services they market, the shift from one sector to another
and the obligations of service providers are unclear. Similarly with
suspected computer and communications offences, where reporting is patently
uneven and often deliberately avoided.
3.3.2 Consequently, whether addressing the take-up rate of a service,
the incidence of hacking or phreaking, or extortion on the threat of
disabling computer systems, opinion can only be based on inference, anecdote
and intuition. There is no central repository of reliable statistical
information, a situation not improved by the reduction, through budgetary
constraints in some areas, of the resources available for law enforcement to
play a proactive role in this area.
3.3.3 The London Sunday Times articles detailing 'sting' attacks on
financial institutions appeared early in this Review process. 27 They
prompted a range of observations, albeit mostly anecdotal or hearsay,
suggesting such attacks may not be as rare or geographically distant as the
Australian community might wish. Law enforcement agencies acknowledged that
institutions and corporations do not believe those responsible will be
identified, let alone their assets recovered. The experience of the Sumitomo
Corporation in Japan early in the Review period was a salutary reminder of
the accuracy of this perception. Sumitomo admitted to its shareholders major
fraud had taken place but had been stopped. The shareholders and the stock
exchange exacted savage retribution for the confession.
3.3.4 The potential loss of public confidence, with the consequent
perception of possible inability to meet commercial obligations, is central
to financial institutions' reluctance to report major criminal activity. It
was apparent to the Review that financial institutions are as restrictive in
their internal communication as they are tacitum externally. An independent
statutory body, funded by government, with a legislated code of
confidentiality covering mandatory reporting to it and its own reporting
arrangements to the parliament, operating under oversight of the
Auditor-General, and independent of any external influences would be a
sensible repository for the statistical data required by government and a
source of advice and guidance to the corporate and commercial world. It
would be able to undertake analysis of the data received, alert public and
private sectors to activity trends and act as an expert witness in court
proceedings.
3.3.5 Such a role would fit a body like AUSCERT, were it to be funded
by the Commonwealth, placed under a strict regime of confidentiality,
vouchsafed by the Auditor-General and guaranteed independence. 28 Its
American equivalent is funded by the Department of Defense. The Department
of Communications and the Arts commissioned a consultant to look at AUSCERT
and the recommendations have now been enacted. The impact of that review on
its functions should be able to be evaluated by mid-1997 when the envisaged
role for AUSCERT or a similar body should be addressed by the proposed
inter-departmental committee on cryptography.
3.4 Policy Uncertainty
3.4.1 While normally unhelpful to meet a question with a question, to
address encryption technologies from a public policy point of view one first
has to answer a question that is both philosophical and practical. As we
develop the Global Information Infrastructure (GII) who should control it?
The carriers, service providers, government, the people who use it or some
amalgam of a number of these? Put another way, the question asks who should
control data in the GII. Without data protection legislation in place, is
the carrier prevented from acting at will with the data entrusted to
networks. A traditional public policy view would argue government regulation
and restraint of processes affecting civil rights and privacy produce more
equitable outcomes. When governments fail in that role or, the people, at
least in democracies, may proceed to remove those governments. To vest the
responsibility with the carriers or service providers, those participating
for profit, would expose a novel dilemma for the citizen - how does one
'throw out' a carrier or service provider judged to be abusing one's privacy
or civil rights? The answer that one should shift to an alternate presumes
availability and suitability, neither of which may be provided. The 'amalgam
proposal' envisages governments picking up citizens' concerns, providing a
framework of some sort within which carriers and providers would operate and
regulate themselves.
3.4.2 At the international level, Australia is playing a significant
role in the development of draft guidelines on cryptography, which will
complement earlier guidelines on privacy and security of information. These
should provide the international framework, to the central tenets of which
it is hoped member countries would commit themselves. The process of
guideline development has been measured, as the issue of cryptography policy
opens for redefinition the citizen's relationship to the state and the role
to be accorded governments within that relationship. National experience and
expectations are very different and time is required to focus on
trans-national principles. That the eye of some has been turned more to
international arrangements they would wish to see in place has not helped a
process which must work from first principles, formulate national policy on
that basis and then move to bilateral and multilateral agreements.
3.4.3 The Australian Government's online industry election statement
identified private commerce as the driver of innovation and investment in
new online services. It proposed the establishment of an Information Policy
Task Force (IPTF) to examine various policy issues and report to the
Goveniment. 29 Meantime, many different committees and working groups are
tasked with examining aspects of on-line services, electronic commerce,
encryption, smart- cards and electronic cash and the daughter of Campbell 30
inquiry will pick up all of these and many more besides. These various
bodies embrace, among others, the Attorney-General's Department, the
Department of Communication and the Arts, the Department of Defence, the
Department of Finance, the Department of Industry, Science and Tourism and a
number of agencies. That is not surprising as elements of cryptography touch
their functions. What is surprising is the uneven level of representation
which some of those review groups attract. A formally established
inter-departmental committee (IDC) would seem a more sensible and effective
means of policy coordination and development than current arrangements. If
established, the appropriate IDC representation would be at Branch Head
level.
3.4.4 There is a need for one department to have the clear
responsibility for cryptography policy and to coordinate the multi-faceted
development of government policies which involve cryptographic applications.
It would not seem sensible for the Department of Defence to assume this
policy function. One of its portfolio organisations, the Defence Signals
Directorate (DSD), is already tasked by government with the collection,
production and dissemination of signals intelligence and 'to advise the
Government on all matters pertaining to communications security and computer
security'. 31 A role not confined solely to situations where national
security could be adversely affected but also embracing sensitive official
information requiring protection for privacy, financial or other reasons. 32
Defence's framework, however, is inextricably linked with sensitive and
classified applications, primarily for its own and diplomatic purposes -
instanced by its required alertness to dual use applications and global
proliferation of cryptography. This would appear to make Defence a less than
obvious choice for the role in question.
3.4.5 The Treasury and the Department of Finance have obvious interests
in the whole field of electronic commerce, but cryptography is a discrete
element of that issue and not a principal policy interest. The Department of
Communications and the Arts has policy responsibility for broadband
services, telecommunications and multimedia, but again cryptography stands a
little apart from these. The Department of Industry, Science and Tourism
approaches the issue from a developmental and export point of view, rather
than a policy one. Embracing the interests of law enforcement, security,
privacy, commercial law, intellectual property and protective security
policy, the Attorney-General's Department may be seen as a preferred option
to house the policy responsibility and chair the IDC. There is a need for
Ministers urgently to address this issue and for it to be determined.
3.4.6 There would seem little doubt that when the major software
manufacturers make available encryption applications, a majority of the
world's computer users will access them. That time was not announced when
this Review commenced and yet Microsoft presaged such a development in July
1996.
3.4.7 The most obvious implication for governments facing the
astonishing pace of development in the communications and information
sectors and the easy private availability of strong encryption is the fiscal
one: such a proportion of financial transactions and movements may take
place via virtual banking arrangements in cyberspace that governments may
face progressive revenue starvation. Only slightly behind is the implication
for the delicate balance our society has reached between privacy, law
enforcement and security interests. Firstly, there is some inherent tension
when these issues are conjoined.
Secondly, it is not simply a question of setting an individual's right
against society's rights, for we do not face here a static balance. All who
live in community accept there has to be some trade-off, but that trade-off
is not an unqualified one. There must be limits. It is a flawed approach to
assume a small or episodic interest of the state should necessarily
predominate over the privacy interests of the individual.
3.4.8 From a privacy point of view, cryptography offers welcome
security to the individual (person or corporation) and the opportunity to
place data, stored or in transmission, beyond the reach of those who may
seek to ascertain their private or commercial affairs. The Government's
online election policy supported the availability of strong encryption, the
principle of informed consent and the centrality of personal privacy in our
society. It recognised not all would use encryption for honest purposes but
placed the onus on law enforcement and security agencies to justify any
measures which should outweigh the social and economic consequences of the
loss of personal privacy and commercial security. 33
3.4.9 The range of situations likely to confront law enforcement and
security agencies is as wide as their statutory mandates, but particular
focus has to be given to crimes such as kidnapping or other threats of
violence directed against VIPs or internationally protected persons,
terrorist situations, extortion involving significant threats to public
safety and attacks on the institutions of the state.
3.5 Today's Problems for the Investigators
[para 3.5.1 not available]
3.5.2 There have been major advances in cryptography in recent years
and significant increases in commercial involvement. Cryptanalysis, however,
does not necessarily maintain a constant distance behind cryptography. The
interval will vary and, without moving into any sensitive detail, it cannot
be expected - on budgetary, personnel and capital equipment alone - that
cryptanalytical facilities will always be able to 'crack' commercial and
public domain forms of encryption.
3.5.3 Law enforcement agencies noted, with some chagrin, it is not the
seizure of property which poses difficulty for them. The problem arises from
an inability to force disclosure of encryption 'keys' where a person invokes
the principle of non self-incrimination. This problem of information being
put out of reach of other than specified persons has resource implications
for ASIO, where accessing plans for acts of politically motivated violence
or terrorist incidents is a central part of that agency's function. It will
make both human source and technical targeting a more difficult exercise -
and increased difficulty impacts on flexibility, responsiveness and
financial outlays.
[para 3.5.4 not available]
3.6 The Imminent Challenge
[para 3.6.1 not available]
3.6.2 It is clear secure encrypted communications are available now to
the ordinary citizen with some computer literacy, the motivation to acquire
the capability and the wish to communicate securely with like-minded and
like- equipped people. Today, 'Smith' could use a commercial symmetric
algorithm like IDEA, together with a 56-bit key producing strong cyphertext,
to communicate with 'Jones', who, possessing the same algorithm and using a
56-bit key, would decrypt the message. Such a system is fast, a single key
performs both the encryption and decryption function and any key number from
a randomly generated pool may be used.
3.6.3 The exchange of the symmetrical keys discussed above might be
performed with an asymmetrical algorithm using a pair of related but
dissimilar keys, one of which is referred to as the private key and the
other as the public key. The public key is then exchanged with all other
parties with whom one wishes to communicate. Potentially such a key could be
notified in a public directory and be accessed by all. To send a message to
Jones, Smith uses a two stage process. In the first stage, he encrypts the
symmetric key for the IDEA algorithm with Jones' public key (which is
publicly available). In the second stage, Smith encrypts his message using
IDEA with the symmetric key. Smith then sends the encrypted key and the
encrypted message to Jones. On receipt of the two files, Jones performs the
two-stage process in reverse. Firstly, she decrypts the symmetric key using
her private key (which she alone knows) and uses this symmetric key with the
IDEA algorithm to decrypt Smith's message.
3.6.4 Another level of strength is achieved by using separate 'session'
keys for every message or series of messages. Automatic teller machines
employs session keys which change with every transaction. A random source is
used to generate, let us say, a 128-bit key which combined with IDEA
produces a session key. That key is used to convert a message into
cyphertext. But the key is also combined with RSA to produce an encrypted
session key. 34 This is separately and first communicated to Jones and
received in the 'start' compartment of the output file of her computer. When
Smith sends his cyphertext message to Jones, she can decrypt it by using the
specially encrypted session key which is now available to her. Such a system
employs both RSA and IDEA and separate sessional keys.
3.6.5 Even if a law enforcement agency was to execute a search warrant
against premises where Smith's computer was located and already had a copy
of his public key, it would be extremely unlikely to be able to obtain a
copy of the session key. Ibis would not be retained in Smith's computer.
Unless Smith volunteered to whom communication from his computer was
directed or Jones was known to be the addressee of that communication and
law enforcement was able to await receipt and decryption, little prospect
exists to intercept satisfactorily such communications.
3.6.6 It is perfectly feasible, today, to incorporate all the features
of the system outlined here into a 'black box' arrangement which, may be
programmed to change the key, say, every 10-15 seconds or more often. Among
a group drawn together in common purpose (such as a bunch of criminals or a
terrorist cell) it would be relatively simple to have a personal computer
function as the central processor, directing and forwarding traffic,
incorporating a tamper-free heart to prevent interference by investigative
agencies with its functions and a self-destruct feature which would erase
all memory if tampering was detected.
3.6.7 Law enforcement and national security agencies assess the ability
to trace calls (including call record information), with the assistance of
carriers or service providers, to be of crucial importance to the
performance of their functions and this capacity will become even more
important if the ability to intercept calls should be lost or the content of
communications was denied by use of an encryption application. These issues
are currently being considered by Sub-Committee B of LEAC, as well as: the
legislative authority on which requests for assistance by investigative
agencies are based; the appropriate scope of the 'reasonableness' test to be
applied (ie is it reasonable to confine the application of special call
tracing measures to life-threatening situations); the criteria to be applied
when seeking call tracing or call record information and issues of cost.
3.7 Towards Response Strategies
3.7.1 The above examples illustrate what may be done today and which
may already be happening. That agencies have not reported wholesale examples
is no comfort such practices are not being employed. Where the targets of
law enforcement and national security observe strict communication security,
the prospect of capturing communications at source or the point of dispatch
may be made even more difficult.
3.7.2 The prospect of collecting data at point of receipt is reduced by
the availability of services such as anonymous remailing, which can cause a
message to bounce around the ether like a ball in a pin-ball machine. In
Internet communications, random paths are taken by message packets and there
is no guarantee constituent packets of the same message will travel by
similar routes. Indeed, directions may be given to diverge the packets and
some may be repeated. All that is certain is that they will arrive at their
address and arrange themselves into correct order. The random routing of
packets will not, of itself, cause a problem where a more conventional
attack at, say, an Internet Service Providers' premises is possible. If the
packets are encrypted, however, the problem remains.
3.7.3 So should one pray for a miracle? If patience is in short supply,
perhaps so. Stephanie Perrin, a Canadian privacy specialist, made two
telling points in her address to an OECD conference in Canberra early in
1996. 35 She publicly reaffirmed her faith in encryption technology but
expressed concern at the people who may be driving it at any time. Her
second point reflected the inherent tension in the public cryptographic
debate - the available technology is of a kind and capacity unable to
accommodate simultaneously both privacy and public safety needs, so striking
a balance is like 'squaring the circle'.
3.7.4 There would appear to be no particular comfort to be gained by
investing hope in a cryptanalytical breakthrough, to pole vault law
enforcement and national security over the mounting obstacle of public and
private cryptography. Such events occur at something like 15 year intervals,
which would exclude them as a relevant factor in this Review, and the
diversity and scale of the volume likely to be faced would daunt even
wishful capacity.
3.7.5 As interception on the network proves progressively difficult and
intractable to decryption and capture at the point of receipt is denied
because direction and intention are both obscured, areas of encouraging
research will require the coordinated resource commitment by the relevant
agencies and cooperative dialogue with the IT industry, carriers and service
providers. In fields where the level of cooperation bears a direct
relationship to the trust felt, it would scarcely be sensible for the
Commonwealth, the States and Territories all separately to approach these
groups.
3.7.6 No argument for government to take public policy decisions on key
management infrastructure, such as the US and UK have done, was put to the
Review. In fact, the reverse was argued. There is a risk of marginalisation
if actions are perceived as premature or ill-conceived.
[remainder of para 3.7.6 not available]
3.7.7 There are matters of privacy, authentication, warranting
provisions and the need to protect law enforcement and national security
access and decryption methods which need to be addressed. Some are discussed
elsewhere in the report. Others are outside the terms of this Review. The
extension of the Privacy Act to the private sector is likely to prove a
significant bulwark for personal data protection. Authentication has being
addressed by the group brought together by Standards Australia to develop a
draft Australian Standard for Public Key Authentication.
3.7.8 The banks, of course, have a long history, at least 15 years, of
dealing with keys, of separating the purpose of different keys and of using
them. There are Australian Standards for electronic interchanges which
address encryption keys, authentication keys and privacy keys. Some
interesting conceptual and technical work is being done by Professor Bill
Caelli and some of his colleagues on the separation of signing and privacy
keys, on notarising the purpose of keys and linking the certification and
notarising processes to a form of registration which would permit access by
law enforcement and security to the confidentiality key. While it is too
early to determine if the proposal is viable from the technical and public
acceptance points of view, there seems some basis for encouragement.
3.7.9 It is worth recalling, when expressions of grave anxiety are
ventilated over any prospect the state, or its agencies, may be able to
access one's signing key (authentication) that people already submit their
biometric signature (fingerprints) to the state in certain circumstances.
The community accepts that as reasonable. There is no doubt fingerprints are
a unique means of identification, as personal as one's handwritten and
witnessed signature, as specific as one's digital signature. The state
enforces a process of fingerprinting in specific circumstances, it requires
considerable numbers of the community to trust the third party with whom
those fingerprints are lodged and the community interests itself very little
in the terms under which they are held or the access which may be gained.
Such a level of trust is given to that third party, the police service, that
few believe copies may be made, printed on to latex gloves and one's
biometric identity compromised in the commission of a criminal offence. The
community appears to trust the integrity of the process and grievance
mechanisms such as the Ombudsman's office which stand outside the process,
though one suspects the particular sensitivity over possible access to
digital signatures derives as much from ignorance and apprehension about the
technology as lack of confidence in the integrity of the proposed custody
system.
3.7.10 Strong argument was put to the Review, and accepted by many of
those especially concerned with privacy, that those who employ encryption in
connection with the planning for or execution of major criminal offences
should be required to disclose the decryption key when lawful demand was
made and failure to do so should incur significant penalty. There is
attraction in the analogy between encryption used in the planning for or
commission of a criminal offence and the use of a firearm in the commission
of a criminal offence. For the use of a deadly weapon in connection with a
criminal offence, the state normally seeks to exact a penalty
proportionately greater than if the perpetrator had been unarmed. That the
use of encryption in connection with a criminal offence be similarly viewed,
where the intention to frustrate any lawful investigation would be assumed
to be the primary motivation in such circumstances and any claimed
preservation of confidentiality considered a secondary motive, is worthy of
considerations The legislation and experience of those American states which
have legislated in this manner might be instructive. 37
3.7.11 The standard instruments of search, discovery or demand should
continue to prove useful for law enforcement agencies and the security
service, but they may not always be adequate. Sometimes those served with
requests may not be inclined to comply. Where they consider they risk
incriminating themselves by doing so is an obvious example. Claims that the
key is lost, held by another or simply not known may appear among the range
of replies. Faced with non-compliance and the risk that delay may result in
the alteration or destruction of data, little recourse is currently
available to law enforcement agencies or prosecution authorities save
seeking to have the person charged with contempt or the obstruction of
justice. These avenues are likely to offer little satisfaction to the
pursuit of the investigation. In the case of strong physical methods of
storage, the application of effort and technology will normally overcome
protective levels or barriers in relatively short order. Faced with
unintelligible data, the absence of prospective access to the key through
any independent entity, but actual and circumstantial evidence that
persuades the encrypted data relates to the commission of serious criminal
offence, the community is likely to support a case for forcing a criminal
suspect or terrorist from behind the shield of encryption.
3.7.12 The National Crime Authority (NCA) and the Australian Securities
Commission (ASC) both have powers requiring persons to answer questions or
produce material. In the case of the NCA, the Chairman can, for instance,
issue an instrument under the Act's section 28/29 powers provision requiring
production of material or information where he/she considers such relates
directly to the resolution of an investigation under reference. There would
seem to be merit in affording the same power to the Commissioner of the AFP
to require the production of the decryption key, information or material
which would render intelligible data which has been intercepted or seized
and cannot be 'read'.
3.7.13 A process of periodic review, stimulated also by operational
circumstance or indications from the courts of actual or potential
deficiency, would seem indicated.
Footnotes:
20 Gilles Brassard of Universite de Montreal and the University of
Wollongong. 'Quantum Cryptography' from the proceedings of the Cryptography
Policy and Algorithms Conference. Queensland University of Technology, 3-5
July 1995, p 59.
22 PSTN - Public Switched Telecommunications Network
24 Dr Dorothy Denning, Professor of Computer Science, Faculty of Computer
Science, Georgetown University, Washington DC, 'The Future of Cryptography'
a presentation to the Joint Australian/OECD conference on Security, Privacy
and Intellectual Property Protection in the Global Information
Infrastructure, Canberra, 7-8 February, 1996
25 Reported in CQ magazine, issue of April 13, 1996, p 987.
26 Louis J Freeh, Director of the FBI, speech given to the International
Cryptography Institute, Washington, DC, September 21, 1995. Available on the
FBI Home Page.
27 The Sunday Times, London. June 2 and June 9, 1996.
28 The Australian Computer Emergency Response Team (AUSCERT) is an
independent Intemet security body based at Queensland University. Funded for
a time by Telstra, when the latter assumed management control of the Intemet
from the Australian Vice Chancellors Committee, it survived for a period on
the basis of temporary and emergency funding but is now moving (reaching?)
to self-sufficiency.
29 Australia Online, op cit, pl0 et seq. See Annex B
30 A commonly used 'colloquial' title of the Financial Systems Inquiry.
mentioned because one of its central terms of reference is to examine the
impact of the implementation of many of the recommendations of the seminal
Campbell committee which looked at deregulation of the financial markets.
31 Defence Signals Directorate, November 1986, Part I.
32 Ibid, Part iv(a) and IV(b).
33 Australia Online, op cit, p 16. Repeated at Annex B of this report.
34 RSA is one of two commonly used proprietary algorithms, the other being
Diffie-Hellman. It is named after its designers, Rivest-Shamir-Adleman.
35 Ms Stephanie Perrin, Special Policy Advisor, Technology Impact
Assessment, Industry Canada, from an address titled 'A Canadian Perspective'
given to the Joint Australian/OECD Conference on Security, Privacy and
Intellectual Property Protection in the Global Information Infrastructure,
7-8 February 1996, Canberra.
36 The National Research Council of the US recommended in its study of US
cryptography policy at 5.4 'Congress should seriously consider legislation
that would impose criminal penalties on the use of encrypted communications
in interstate commerce with the intent to commit a federal crime.'
37 The bill introduced into the US Senate by Senator Leahy in March 1996
(and supported by [then] Senator Robert Dole, is cited as the 'Encrypted
Communications Privacy Act of 1996'. It contained the following provisions:
"s. 2804 Unlawful use of encryption to obstruct justice. Whoever wilfully
endeavours by means of encryption to obstruct, impede or prevent the
communication of information in furtherance of a felony which may be
prosecuted in a court of the United States, to an investigative or law
enforcement officer shall - (1) in the case of a first conviction, be
sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 5 years, fined under this title,
or both, or (2) in the case of a second or subsequent conviction, be
sentenced to imprisonment for not more than 10 years, funded under this
title or both. The 104th Congress passed in its last days HR 3723, the
National Information Infrastructure Protection Act of 1996. A section of the
bill entitled "Use of Certain Technology to Facilitate Criminal Conduct'
requires presentencing reports to include a statement whether the defendant
used encryption which use could result in an 'obstruction of justice'
increase in jail time under Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
Chapter 4
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