Flaw Found in Clipper (AP)

[David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

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                                              12:04 AM (ET) 6/1
News Report: Flaw Found in Wiretap


 NEW YORK--A computer scientist has discovered a
basic flaw in coding technology that the Clinton
administration has been promoting as a standard
for electronic communications, The New York Times
reported Thursday.
   Matthew Blaze, a researcher at AT&T Bell
Laboratories, told the Times his research had
shown that someone with sufficient computer skills
can beat the government's technology by encoding
messages so that no one, not even the government,
can crack them.
   The administration has been urging private
industry to adopt the so-called "Clipper chip" as
a standard encoding system. The government says
telephone and computer messages sent with the chip
cannot be read by an outsider but can be decoded
by government law-enforcement agencies.
   Officials fear that without such a system,
wiretaps would be useless against criminals and
terrorists because their communications could be
hidden in unbreakable codes. But communications
executives and privacy-rights experts fear the
potential for snooping and worry that foreign
customers wouldn't buy the equipment if Washington
could snoop on it.
   Blaze said the flaw he discovered in the
Clipper design would not permit a 3d party to
break a coded computer conversation. But it would
enable 2 people to have a secret conversation that
law enforcement officials could not unscramble.
   Blaze said a draft report of his findings has
been circulating among computer experts and
federal agencies.
   The National Security Agency, which played a
leading role in developing the technology, does
not dispute the flaw's existence, but believes the
Clipper remains useful anyway, the Times said.
   Michael A. Smith, the agency's director of
planning, told the Times in a written response to
questions that the flaw found by Blaze was
difficult enough to exploit that most people
wishing to circumvent the system would find other
ways to do it.
   Martin Hellman, a Stanford University expert on
data encryption who has read Blaze's paper, said:
"The government is fighting an uphill battle. ...
People who want to work around Clipper will be
able to do it."
                                          (From AP)