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2 January 2010. Cryptome: By comparing redactions of the Tom Johnson document at the National Security Archive with redactions in the one released by NSA to Cryptome, a number of differences were seen which revealed additional information. See NSA document updated after Diffie's comments were received. 2 January 2010 Martin Hellman on NSA and the Joseph Meyer letter: http://cryptome.org/hellman/hellman-nsa.htm
Whitfield Diffie writes 1 January 2010: Here are my comments on the NSA document you received. It turns out to be from Book III: Retrenchment and Reform of Tom Johnson's multi-volume history of NSA released under a different FOIA request in 2008. On balance this document is less heavily redacted than Johnson's full history but that version does answer some questions about this one. Some of the interlinear commentary was written before I figured out what this was and may look a little odd in that light. I have put in line breaks where they were in the original in an attempt to produce a type facsimile. My comments are indented one tab stop [marked Diffie:].
Begin NSA document. [--------------] Indicates redactions in original text. DOCID: 3417193 [One-half page redacted.] (U) PUBLIC CRYPTOGRAPHY (U) Modern cryptography has, since its earliest days, been associated with governments. Amateurs there were, like Edgar Allan Poe, who dabbled in the art, and it has held a certain public fascination from the earliest days. But the discipline requires resources, and only governments could marshal the resources necessary to do the job seriously. By the end of World War II, American cryptology had become inextricably intertwined with the Army and Navy's codebreaking efforts at Arlington Hall and Nebraska Avenue. But this picture would begin changing soon after the war. Diffie: This seems a mistaken analysis. American 20th-century cryptography stood on the shoulders of Edward Hebern, William Friedman, Gilbert Vernam, and Herbert Yardley, all of whom were outside of government when they made their initial (and perhaps greatest) discoveries. After World War I, there began a period in which governments rose to dominate cryptography. (U) Modem public cryptography originated with a Bell Laboratories scientist, Claude Shannon, whose mathematics research led him to develop a new branch of mathematics called information theory. A 1948 paper by Shannon brought the new discipline into the Diffie: Odd for the author to miss the point that the 1949 paper is based on a confidential Bell Labs paper written in 1945.
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public domain, and from that time on, cryptography became a recognized academic pursuit.119 Diffie: Not so much. Cryptography was probably at its most secret during the 1950s. (U) Public cryptography had no market in those days. So when IBM researcher Horst Feistel developed a line of key generators to be embedded in IBM computers, called Lucifer, there was no immediate use for it. But in 1971 Lloyd's Bank of London contacted IBM to ask about the possibility of securing transactions from a cash dispensing terminal. Feistal sent Lucifer to Lloyd's. IBM then formed a group. headed by Walter Tuchman, to develop the idea of encrypting banking transactions. Diffie: This is at the very least a scanty account. The most important of Feistel's work was done for the Air Force Cambridge Research Center around 1950. AFCRC (later AFCRL) was working on aircraft identification. Its work was not sponsored by NSA (or its predicessors) but did communicate with the Agency and was later very influential. In the 1950s, NSA succeeded in eliminating virtually all other cryptographic work in the U.S. and Feistel's group was put out of business. Feistel remained intersted in little else for the rest of his career and was successively rebuffed in his interests at ARCRL, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and Mitre before finding a home less subject to government influence at IBM. I suspect, though I do not know, that IBM was already interested in cryptography when it hired Feistel.
Diffie: This is probably mention of some of the evidence that appeared during the 1970s of Soviet exploitation of American communications. This argued the opposite case - that, as Frank Rowlett had contended since World War II, in the long run it was more important to secure one's own communications than to exploit those of the enemy.121
Diffie: The only previous mention I had heard of 48 bits was from Charles Bigelow who said at the second NBS meeting on DES that he though 48 bits might be sufficient. Either Walter Tuchman or Carl Meyer told me that they had a number of keylengths and mentioning 72.
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(U) To calm the waters, NBS called a conference in August 1976. It solved nothing. Leading academic figures contended that the DES algorithm was so weak that it could be solved with fairly modest resources (on the order of $9 million), while defenders pronounced it secure against virtually any attack feasible at the time. National Bureau of Standards ultimately promised that the DES algorithm would be reevaluated every five years.124 (U) The problem was, in large part, one of timing. During the Church and Pike Committee hearings, NSA had been tarred with the same brush that smeared CIA and FBI, and the exculpatory conclusions of the Church Committee were lost in a sea of fine print. What the public remembered were the sensational allegations of journalist Tad Szulc and the finger-pointing of former cryptologist Winslow Peck. Diffie: I must admit that I don't remember either thing. According to German Wikipedia and a reprint of the articles on jya.com, Winslow Peck is a pseudonym of Perry Fellwock who wrote two articles "U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir, parts 1 and 2," in Ramparts in July and August of 1972. Whether NSA was an apolitical collector of foreign intelligence information or truly a governmental "Big Brother" had not yet been adjudicated in the public mind. The concern for individual privacy, largely an outgrowth of the Watergate period, exercised an important sway on the American public, and even Walter Mondale, with years of experience watching over intelligence agencies from his Senate perch, was consumed by this issue when he was Carter's vice president. Any endeavor that would make NSA out as an inspector of private American communications would play negatively. The DES controversy was one of those issues. (U) In 1976 a related chain of events began which was to flow together with the DES controversy. In that year Martin Hellman of Stanford, one of the world's leading practitioners of the cryptographic arts, and his graduate student, Whitfield Diffie, published "New Directions in Cryptography" in the November issue of IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. It contained the first public exposition of what was to become known as public key cryptography. In the Hellman-Diffie scheme, it would be possible for individual communicants to have their own private key and to communicate securely with others without a preset key. All that was necessary was to possess a publicly available key and a private key which could be unlocked only with permission. This revolutionary concept freed cryptography from the burdensome periodic exchange of key with a set list of
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correspondents and permitted anyone with the same equipment to communicate with complete privacy.125 Diffie: Time has shown this to be a somewhat over-enthusiastic assessment.
Hellman and Diffie had discovered a technique that [----------------] James Ellis had Diffie: There are two likely possibilities for the deleted portion; a careful look at the exemptions might help resolve them. discovered six years previously. NSA regarded the technique as classified; now it was out in the open.126 (U) In April 1977 David Boak and Cecil Corry of NSA visited Dr. John Pasta, director of NSF's division of mathematical and computer research, to discuss the issue. Since the early 1970s there had been sporadic contact between NSA and NSF, and NSF had agreed to permit a certain amount of NSA "assistance" on these types of projects, but only to examine grant proposals on their technical merits rather than to institute a formal coordination process. Pasta, believing that academic freedom was at stake, held fast to the NSF position and refused to permit NSA to exercise any sort of control over future grants.127
Diffie: Probably a mention of Clifford Cocks's work on this subject. that it had been discovered within the cryptologic community five years earlier and was still regarded as secret. Diffie: If the reference is to Cocks's work, it is about 3 years earlier; the paper is dated 20 November 1973. In fact, NSA had reviewed the Rivest application, but the wording was so general that the Agency did not spot the threat and passed it back to NSF without comment. Diffie: This doesn't really square with R, S, and A's account of the work. Rivest discovered the problem from reading New Directions and brought it to the attention of Shamir and Adleman with whom he was working on other mathematical issues. Adlemen, in particular, recalls resisting the work on cryptgraphy as insignificant. He recalls thinking when he allowed his name to be on the paper "This will be the least noticed paper I ever write." It seems unlikely that Rivest filed a new grant proposal in the fairly short interval between beginning to work on the public-key problem and disocvering RSA. Since the technique had been jointly funded by NSF and the Office of Naval Research, NSA's new director, Admiral Bobby Inman, visited the director of ONR to secure a commitment that ONR would get NSA's coordination on all such future grant proposals.128
Diffie: I would have thought the most likely phrase here would be "maximal period" or "maximal cycle length" but the patent, 4202051, contains endless repetition of the phrase "linear feedback shift register" and that is probably it. The text does contain one occurrence of the phrase "maximal length period shift registers," thereby covering all bases. organization was unruffled, but DDO, fearing the spread of shift register techniques that would give the SIGINT side problems, recommended a secrecy order, which was duly put in place by the Patent Office. The inevitable public debate turned on the issue of academic freedom. NSA answered that if Davida had published the technique in an academic journal he would have been protected, but since he had instead applied for a patent, it
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appeared that he was in it for the money and thus lacked First Amendment protection. This was incontrovertible logic but bad politics, and once again NSA was forced to back down. The Davida patent was reinstated.129
Diffie: This looks like an editing error. Magnuson was the senator from Washington, so it probably meant to say Nicolai. the Senate. In the face of the commotion, NSA backed down and the Patent Office lifted the secrecy order.130
(U) This idea was pushed internally by one [----------------------] but was just one Diffie: Context suggests that the deletion reads "Joseph A. Meyer." of several techniques being considered. In July 1977 took [-----] matters into his own Diffie: Presumably deletes the name Meyer. The deletion of the name of the subject of the request (who has been dead several years) is a disturbing afront to both common sense and good public relations. From here on I have just changed [-----] to [Meyer] where appropriate. hands. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers would be holding a symposium on cryptography in Ithaca, New York. Concerned about the potential hemorrhage of cryptographic information [Meyer] sent a letter to E. K. Gannet, staff secretary of the IEEE publications board, pointing out that cryptographic systems were covered by ITAR and contending that prior government approval would be necessary for the publication of many of the papers. The letter raised considerable commotion within IEEE, with scholars racing to secure legal opinions and wondering if the federal government might arrest them and impound the information.132 (U) The issue did not stop with IEEE. Someone notified the press, and journalist Deborah Shapley published the entire controversy in an issue of Science magazine. Although [Meyer] wrote the letter on plain bond paper, Shapley quickly discovered his association, and she claimed that NSA was harassing scientists and impeding research into public cryptography. In her view, the lack of direct traceability constituted smuggling NSA's official view covertly to academia, with plausible deniability. Congressional reaction was swift, and the Senate decided to hold hearings on the issues.133
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(U) The [-----] letter was dispatched, recalled Inman ruefully, on virtually the same date that he became director. It presented him with his first public controversy, only days into his new administration.
Diffie: The NSA Scientific Advisory Board. of NSA seniors, looking at public cryptography and proposing options. To this extremely complex issue the board of seniors proposed three alternatives: a. Do nothing. This school of thought, championed by G Group, held that any public discussion would heighten awareness of cryptographic problems and could lead to nations buying more secure crypto devices. This threat was especially acute in the Third World.
(U) Inman first chose the legislative solution. Daniel Silver, the head of NSA's legal team, circulated a draft of a new Cryptologic Information Protection Act. This proposed creating a new entity, the U.S. Cryptologic Board, which could restrict dissemination of sensitive cryptologic material for up to five years and would impose severe penalties (five years in prison, a $10,000 fine) for violation.135 (U) But Inman himself recognized the unlikelihood of getting Congress to act. NSA's proposed legislation would run against a strong movement in the opposite direction in both Congress and the White House, where the desire was to unshackle U.S. commerce from any sort of Pentagon-imposed restriction on trade. Even as the NSA seniors were recommending strengthening NSA's control over cryptography, President Carter was signing PD-24. This presidential directive divided cryptography in half. "National security cryptography," that which pertained to the protection of classified and unclassified information relating to national defense, would remain with NSA. But the directive also defined another sort of issue, "national interest" cryptography, which pertained to unclassified information which it was desirable to protect for other reasons (international currency exchange information, for instance), Protecting this type of
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information and dealing with the private sector on such protection (for instance, on DES), would become part of the domain of the Commerce Department. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), within Commerce, would be responsible for dealing with the public. NTIA moved promptly to assert its authority in the area of cryptographic export policy and to deal with academia over cryptography. NSA mounted strong opposition to both moves.
Diffie: House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Boland, agreeing with Inman's complaint, told Brooks that future matters of this sort, which affected national security and intelligence operations, should be coordinated in advance with his committee. This did not end the sniping between NSA and Brooks, but did give the Agency a powerful ally.136
(U) Inman was convinced from the start that the legislative approach, even if successful, would have to be supplemented by some sort of jawboning with academia. Early in his administration, he decided to visit Berkeley, a center of opposition to any sort of government intervention, and a hotbed of raw suspicion since the early days of the Vietnam War. He found himself in a room with antiestablishment faculty members, and "for an hour it was a dialogue of the deaf." Then the vice chancellor of the University of California, Michael Heyman, spoke up. Just suppose, he said, the admiral is telling the truth and that national security is being jeopardized. How would you address the issue? Instantly the atmosphere changed, and the two sides (Inman on one side, the entire faculty on the other) began a rational discussion of compromises. This convinced him that he was on the right track, and he pursued this opening to the public.138
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(U) Inman followed this with a visit to Richard Atkinson, head of the National Science Foundation, to discuss the ideas that had emerged at Berkeley. The faculty had expressed a desire to get an "honest broker," one that both sides trusted, to sort through the issues and get to a compromise. Atkinson suggested that they approach the American Council on Education (ACE), and agreed that if ACE would agree to sponsor the effort, the National Science Foundation would fund it.139 (U) This presented NSA with a historic opportunity to engage in a rational debate with the private sector, and it drove Inman to bring the issue to the attention of the American public. His forum was the annual meeting of the Armed Forces Communications Electronics Association in January 1979. It was the first public speech by an NSA director, and as Inman said at the outset, it was "a significant break with NSA tradition and policy." He then laid out the conflicting interests - academic freedom versus national security. He advocated a problem-solving dialogue, but also acknowledged that the government might on occasion have to impose restrictions on extremely sensitive technology to protect national security. "I believe that there are serious dangers to our broad national interests associated with uncontrolled dissemination of cryptologic information within the United States. It should be obvious that the National Security Agency would not continue to be in the signals intelligence business if it did not at least occasionally enjoy some cryptanalytic successes." On the other hand, the government might have to permit the free exchange of technology, taking action in only the most difficult cases. The important thing, he stressed, was to talk through these issues so that both sides understood what was at stake and could appreciate the position of the other side. And he articulated the long-range importance of the problem: "Ultimately these concerns are not those merely of a single government agency, NSA. They are of vital interest to every citizen of the United States, since they bear vitally on our national defense and the successful conduct of our foreign policy."140 (U) The public opening was followed by a series of meetings, sponsored by ACE, to devise a forum to begin the dialogue. Some members (most notedly George Davida) held out for a complete absence of any controls on academia, but the majority concluded that controls would be necessary when national security was involved. What emerged was a procedure for prior restraint, involving a board of five members, a minority of whom would be from NSA, to review publication proposals. Submissions would be voluntary, and the area of examination would be very limited. The proposal passed with the unlikely Yes vote of Martin Hellman, who had earlier been subjected to some private jawboning by Inman. He, along with others in academia, had come to believe that there was, indeed, a legitimate national security interest in what they were doing.141 (U) Prepublication review turned out to be less of a real than an imagined threat to First Amendment freedoms. The committee requested very few changes to proposals, and most of those were easily accomplished. In one case, NSA actually aided in lifting a secrecy order placed on a patent application. The submitter, Shamir of RSA fame, thanked NSA for its intervention. At the same time, NSA established its own program to fund research proposals into cryptography. Martin Hellman was one of the first applicants.142
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(U) As for DES, the controversy quieted for a period of years. DES chips were being manufactured by several firms and had become a profitable business. In 1987, NSA proposed a more sophisticated algorithm, but the banking community, the prime user of DES, had a good deal of money invested in it and asked that no modifications be made for the time. By the early 1990s it had become the most widely used encryption algorithm in the world. Though its export was restricted, it was known to be widely used outside the United States. According to a March 1994 study, there were some 1,952 products developed and distributed in thirty-three countries.143 Notes [Three-fourths of a page redacted with "Non - Responsive" inserted]
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[One-fourth page redacted with "Non - Responsive" inserted] 119. (U) DDIR files, 96026, Box 4, Drake Notebook, Proto Paper. 120. (U) Ibid [--------------] draft history of COMPUSEC, in CCH files; [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet: The Debate over Public Cryptography in the Inman Era," Cryptologic Quarterly, Spring 1996) 15: 6-7. 121. (U) Ibid. 122. (U) Ibid. 123. (U) DDIR files, 96026, Box 4, Drake Notebook, Proto paper; David Kahn, "Cryptology Goes Public," Foreign Affairs (Fall 1979) 147-51 [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 13-14. 124. (U) [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 8-9. 125. (U) [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 10 [--------------] Fifty Years of Mathematical Cryptanalysis (Fort Meade), Md. NSA, 1988), 80. 126. (U) [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 10 [--------------] Fifty Years of Mathematical Cryptanalysis (Fort Meade), Md. NSA, 1988), 78. 127. (U) [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 10. 128. (U) [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 10 [--------------] Fifty Years of Mathematical Cryptanalysis (Fort Meade), Md. NSA, 1988), 80. 129. (U) Kahn, "Cryptology Goes Public," 154-55 [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 16. 130. (U) Kahn, "Cryptology Goes Public," 155 [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 16. 131. (U) [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 11; DDIR files, 96026, Box 4, Drake Notebook. 132. (U) Kahn, "Cryptology Goes Public," 155-56 [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 13. 133. (U) [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 12. 134. (U) Ibid. 20-21. 135. (U) Ibid. 25. 136. (U) Ibid. 17-18, 32-35. 137. (U) Ibid. 138. (U) Interview, Norman Boardman, by Robert D. Farley, 1986, OH 3-86, NSA. 139. (U) Ibid. 140. (U) CCH Series VI.D.2.30. 141. (U) [-------] "NSA Comes Out of the Closet," 28-31.
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142. (U) Boardman Interview; Report of a Special Panel of the ACM U.S. Public Policy Committee (USACM), Codes, Keys, and Conflicts: Issues in U.S. Crypto Policy (New York: ACM, 1994). 143. (U) Kahn, "Cryptology Goes Public [------------------------] Comes Out of the Closet," 13; Codes, Keys, and Conflicts, 4-5; Telephone interview [-----------] uary 1998. [Balance of page blank.]
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