[2467] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Secure Cell Phones for State
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave Emery)
Fri Apr 10 17:00:44 1998
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 16:30:24 -0400
From: Dave Emery <die@die.com>
To: Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
Reply-To: die@die.com
In-Reply-To: <199804101625.JAA12350@servo.qualcomm.com>; from Phil Karn on Fri, Apr 10, 1998 at 09:25:01AM -0700
On Fri, Apr 10, 1998 at 09:25:01AM -0700, Phil Karn wrote:
> I don't know about the Motorola phones, but a while back Qualcomm
> built a bunch of prototype secure CDMA phones for NSA under a contract
> project called "Condor". They insisted on hardware encryption,
> originally using Fortezza PCMCIA cards but later it became apparent
> that they really wanted STU-III. So we had to build a PCMCIA adapter
> that stuck on the back of a Qualcomm CD-7000 (our first generation
> CDMA portable, never sold on the market in large quantities).
>
Am I missing something here, or are the STU III "add ons" for
your phones and Motorola's full STU III implementations with integrated
modems and/or some provision for getting off the cell system as V.32
modem tones to directly connect to a STU III on the other end ? This
would allow direct interoperation with all the other hundreds of
thousands of STU IIIs in offices and scattered throughout the federal
and POTS telephone networks... Much more useful than Fortezza cards
since a STU III capability allows end to end encryption of any desired
security level over the standard phone system to the large installed
base of land line STU IIIs without requiring that the serving MTSO
(mobile telephone switch) have any access to the RED (secure) side of
the call with all the guards, and vaults and TEMPEST sheilding and so
forth this implies. This allows use of the phones almost anywhere.
The only way that Fortezza would be useful is in establishing links
to another Fortezza phone or to some sort of trusted intermediary that handled
the conversion to STU III, which would of course add delay to the talking
path and make the whole thing more brittle and cumbersome than having
the cellphone able to talk STU III directly.
Of course if there was a large base of Fortezza phones things
might be different.
--
Dave Emery N1PRE, die@die.com DIE Consulting, Weston, Mass.
PGP fingerprint = 2047/4D7B08D1 DE 6E E1 CC 1F 1D 96 E2 5D 27 BD B0 24 88 C3 18
