Re: [SLE] A very interesting paper by Ken Thompson..

Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2000 14:17:05 -0600 (CST) From: Michael Message-ID: Subject: Re: [SLE] A very interesting paper by Ken Thompson.. Never trust anything that isn't opensource. Learn to code at least enough to look for obvious holes. Is the only way to be safe. :) *^*^*^* Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you. -- Albert Einstein On Wed, 6 Dec 2000, Cliff Sarginson wrote:

On Wednesday 06 December 2000 00:39, Jerry Kreps wrote:

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I don't know if my email from work made it through the firewall so I am resending the source for the pgp backdoor.

http://www.cert.org/advisories/CA-2000-18.html

JLK

On Tuesday 05 December 2000 08:02, peter hollings wrote:

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It's interesting (from a civil liberties perspective) that there is a backdoor into PGP. Can you tell me more? How did this come about? Was it publicized? Does encryption technology without backdoors exist? If so, how can we be sure?

Also, of potential interest is the FBI's "Carnivore" system. Carnivore basically automates the surveillance process on the Internet. If one combines backdoors with surveillance, one has quite a capability. For a recent study on Carnivore see: http://www.usdoj.gov/jmd/publications/carniv_entry.htm .

For SuSE this may be off-topic. If we hear any objection, I propose that we move it off the list.

I would think anyone on this list concerned with security would be well advised to take an interest in this !

(just when you thought it was safe to go into the water...)

Cliff

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Regards,

Peter Hollings

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jerry Kreps" To: "zentara" ; "peter hollings" Cc: ; ; "suse-linux-e" Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 5:28 PM Subject: Re: [SLE] A very interesting paper by Ken Thompson..

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On Monday 04 December 2000 15:36, zentara wrote:

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peter hollings wrote:

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Yes, the NSA is a possibility, but I'd be more concerned about the ill effects on society that could be brought about via a widely distributed, closed, proprietary system such as Windows. It's another reason for using Linux.

I'm an old windows basher, but as the article stated, no OS is immune to the microcode attack. I was discussing a while back whether pgp and other encryption programs had "backdoors" in them, the answer was "if it exists, it's in our c compilers", controlled by very high level people. I have a paranoid streak. :-)

It's not paranoia if it true, and with regards to pgp it is true. The NSA backdoor to version 6.x of pgp (I don't remember if 5.x has the backdoor) is verified. That is why there was a recent mass movement from pgp to gpg

-- Scientific theories, according to Sir Karl Popper, can be "falsified," or

proven wrong, by experiment.

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Unscientific theories -Marxist dialectical history and Freudian psychology

were Popper's favorites-

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are formed in such a way that they cannot be falsified by data.

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