Subject: Is key escrow enough?

From: [email-masked] (David Koontz )
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 23:15:17 GMT

>From: [email-masked]
>                           Revised, April 21, 1993

>The chips are programmed by Mykotronx, Inc., which calls them the
>"MYK-78."  The silicon is supplied by VLSI Technology Inc.

>All Clipper Chips are programmed inside a SCIF (Secure Compartmented
>Information Facility), which is essentially a vault.  The SCIF contains
>a laptop computer and equipment to program the chips.  About 300 chips
>are programmed during a single session.  The SCIF is located at
>Mykotronx.

>ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND DISTRIBUTION NOTICE.  This article is based on
>information provided by NSA, NIST, FBI, and Mykotronx.  Permission to
>distribute this document is granted.

So, who is Mykotronx, Inc.?  It would be nice to know that they are
not a front company used by an intelligence or other agency of the 
U.S. government.

While we are at it, the chip design(s) should be examined and verified
against silicon to insure no trap doors or hidden protocols exist in silicon,
regardless of the security level of the encryption algorithm.  There is
no proof that the chip won't squeel and role over for someone with the
proper knowledge to interrogate it via the communications link.

The design examination should be done to the gate level.  Also, how does one
verify that what you are looking at is reflected in tapeout, or masks?

The silicon should be examined as well, the design in hand (a clean room
publicly defined clipper chip) can be merged with another design later, or
changed between completion and mask out.  There is little proof that what
you are told is in the chip is all that is in the chip.

Put the (verified) masks in escrow, and use them for chip production,
use a third escrow party for programming the chips. 

The government is asking for a lot of blind trust:  the encryption algorithm, 
operating protocols, the agency having physical control of the devices, the 
silicon implementation.  If the  government is so trustworthy, why escrow
anything?