[3108] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Fwd: Intel's "own back-door processes"?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rodney Thayer)
Tue Jul 28 13:57:07 1998
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1998 12:32:33 -0400
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: Rodney Thayer <rodney@unitran.com>
presumably this is a reference to the potential for this sort of thing in Intel's crypto architecture, CDSA.
There are others building CDSA implementations (perversely, it's an Open Group spec, so you have to import the documents from England if you're in the US...) so not all CDSA's are necessarily as nasty as Intel's could be.
But then again, who needs CDSA when you have Cryptlib 2.1, etc...
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>To: cryptography@c2.net
>From: "Richard D. Murad" <richard.murad@trw.com>
>Subject: Intel's "own back-door processes"?
>Sender: owner-cryptography@c2.net
>
>The July 27, 1998 issue of Federal Computer Week, p.50, has a small blurb
>in its INTERCEPTS section titled "DING-DONG!" which mentions both Intel's
>support of "private doorbell" and Intel's "own back-door processes". I
>quote below:
>
>"DING-DONG! Our [Federal Computer Week's] European monitoring site has
>picked up strong signals that Intel Corp. and 12 other U.S.-based,
>high-tech firms have thrown their weight behind a 'private doorbell' system
>as an alternative to the controversial key-recovery scheme."
>
>"In addition, the same site picked up signals that the National Security
>Agency approached Intel with a request to embed backdoor processes in Intel
>chips but was rebuffed by the giant chip maker. Sources told FCW that, as
>a compromise, Intel is not opposed to making its own back-door processes
>available to the FBI for law enforcement purposes."
>
>Does anybody know what is being referred to by Intel's "own back-door
>processes"?
>
>Thanks,
>
>Rick
>
