[2471] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Secure Cell Phones for State
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Koontz)
Fri Apr 10 19:13:25 1998
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 16:00:34 -0700
From: koontz@netapp.com (David Koontz)
To: die@die.com, karn@qualcomm.com
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
> 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.
There is a thing called Fortezza-Plus or Krypton which adds Type I
encryption to a PCMCIA card. This is the basis of the STE (STU-III
replacement phones), whose other major feature upgrade includes
ISDN.
url<http://www.nsa.gov:8080/programs/missi/stepg.html>
There is a link to L3 Corps web page but not to the Motorola page
(maybe they lost a contract?).
