Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!accuvax.nwu.edu!nucsrl!telecom-request From: tep@tots.logicon.com (Tom Perrine) Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: Re: Bell Cellular to Offer Users Snoop-proof Scramblers Message-ID: <8962@accuvax.nwu.edu> Date: 14 Jun 90 20:12:31 GMT Sender: news@accuvax.nwu.edu Reply-To: Tom Perrine Organization: Logicon, Inc., San Diego, California Lines: 55 Approved: Telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 435, Message 3 of 13 In article <8941@accuvax.nwu.edu> ndallen@contact.uucp (Nigel Allen) writes: X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 10, Issue 433, Message 1 of 8 >Excerpted from {The Globe and Mail}, Toronto, June 7, 1990 >Bell Cellular has developed a new scrambling service that will allow >its cellular radio-telephone subscribers to encrypt all their voice >and data communications. >The device contains the programs for scrambling and descrambling >messages. It is made by Cycomm Corp., a unit of Sonatel >Telecommunications Corp. of Vancouver, British Columbia. See below. >Although Bell Cellular is targetting the defence and national >security market, the scrambling unit has not yet been certified that >it meets the rigid Tempest standards set by the U.S. National Security >Agency. Only equipment that meets the Tempest standards set by the top >secret communications spy agency can be used by NATO governments to >communicate classified military and intelligence information. NSA is the agency charged with (among other things :-) ensuring the security of U.S. gov't and related communications. No encryption method, algorithm or device may be used to protect classified information unless NSA approves it. For example, although NSA and the government would like US businesses and others to use DES, they don't approve it for protecting classified information. "Its good enough for *you*, but not good enough for *us*. Why? We can't tell you." Right. This approval has almost nothing to do with TEMPEST, which is effectively a standard regarding the amount and "quality" of emitted RF that a device processing classified information may emit. TEMPEST is actually the unclassified code-word for a classified program. The technical parameters of what actually constitutes "TEMPEST certified" is apparently classified. >Bell Cellular is a subsidiary of Montreal-based BCE Mobile >Communications Inc., which in turn is a subsidiary of BCE Inc., >formerly Bell Canada Enterprises. I find it almost impossible to believe that NSA is going to approve a box that they didn't design, and which was designed and manufactured outside the US. Disclaimer: I've read the _Puzzle Palace_ and thats all I can say :-) Tom Perrine (tep) |Internet: tep@tots.Logicon.COM Logicon |UUCP: nosc!hamachi!tots!tep Tactical and Training Systems Division |-or- sun!suntan!tots!tep San Diego CA |GENIE: T.PERRINE "Harried: with preschoolers" |+1 619 455 1330