Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!umix!umich!mibte!gamma!ulysses!thumper!karn
From: karn@thumper.bellcore.com (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Request for opinions: canadian cryptographic standard.
Message-ID: <998@thumper.bellcore.com>
Date: 20 Mar 88 19:40:13 GMT
References: <2463@geac.UUCP> <7503@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 28
Summary: Base cryptographic designs on mathematics, not secrecy

>   We strongly believe that for sensitive Canadian secrets, a
>proprietary Canadian algorithm should be embedded into LSI, and the
>details shared with no one outside Canada.

Why repeat the same heavy-handed tactics that you so justly criticize
the NSA for engaging in?

As a layperson interested in cryptography (but not competent to pass
judgement on the relative merits of any particular encryption system) I
am forced to trust the judgement of others.

In order for me to do this, I have to be able to trust the system under
which these other people operate.  To me this means 1) avoiding even the
appearance of a conflict of interest and 2) applying the tmme-honored
scientific principles of openness and peer review to the process.

I am far more willing to trust the collective judgement of independent
specialists in academic and commercial organizations openly working in
parallel on a publicly-specified algorithm whose design principles are
also public than I would trust a government organization, with its
inherent conflict of interest, working in secret, that says "trust us,
it's secure, but we can't tell you anything more about it".  It doesn't
matter how much more capable the government cryptologists may be, or how
much additional security might theoretically accrue from keeping the
algorithm design process secret. The two principles above have to be
paramount.  I also trust mathematics a lot more than I trust people.

Phil