[2003] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: secret history of the development of PK crypto
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rick Smith)
Wed Dec 24 17:52:08 1997
In-Reply-To: <9712241754.AA13641@oklahoma.dh.trw.com.>
Date: Wed, 24 Dec 1997 14:51:03 -0600
To: Joseph.Reuter@trw.com
From: Rick Smith <smith@securecomputing.com>
Cc: smb@research.att.com, cryptography@c2.net, mab@crypto.com,
karn@qualcomm.com
At 9:54 AM -0800 12/24/97, Joe Reuter wrote:
>Public key crypto provides an additional level of security. With
>symmetric crypto, the people who *built* the bomb in the first place
>know the firing code.
Not necessarily. They could play "separation of duty" games during
development and manufacturing. The "plaintext" version of the sequencing
and control logic would be produced by the design team. Conversion of that
logic from plaintext to ciphertext could be performed by a device that used
split keys or other such techniques in a separate step, isolating the
keying from other teams and spreading it among other individuals. During
manufacturing, the actual bombs would only contain the ciphertext version.
Thus, the actual bomb construction team wouldn't have access to the arming
key, either.
Rick.
smith@securecomputing.com Secure Computing Corporation
"Internet Cryptography" at http://www.visi.com/crypto/ and bookstores
