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  1.                      California student unscrambles Internet code
  2.  
  3.                      U.S. urged to loosen restrictions    
  4.                      on encryption exports
  5.  
  6.                      January 30, 1997
  7.                      Web posted at: 2:45 p.m. EST
  8.  
  9.                      In this story:
  10.  
  11.                         * Government vs. commerce
  12.                         * A matter of trust
  13.                         * Related sites
  14.  
  15.                      BERKELEY, California (Reuters) -- As the White
  16.                      House and the Internet community battle over U.S.
  17.                      encryption laws, a University of California
  18.                      graduate student said he broke a code said to have
  19.                      the strongest encryption that U.S. law allows to
  20.                      be exported without restrictions.
  21.  
  22.                      It took him a mere three and a half hours, he
  23.                      said.
  24.  
  25.                      "It shows how silly the export restrictions are
  26.                      because 40- bit key length is ridiculously weak,"
  27.                      Ian Goldberg, a graduate student of computer
  28.                      science at the University of California at
  29.                      Berkeley, told Reuters.
  30.  
  31.                      The 40-bit encrypted message was published Tuesday
  32.                      morning by RSA Data Security Inc., a software firm
  33.                      in Redwood City, California, which developed
  34.                      encryption widely used on the Internet, as a
  35.                      challenge to code breakers.
  36.  
  37.                      RSA, owned by Security Dynamics Technologies Inc.,
  38.                      is one of dozens of companies trying to get the
  39.                      U.S. government to loosen its restrictions on the
  40.                      export of encryption, which currently prohibit
  41.                      U.S. firms or citizens from putting encrypted code
  42.                      of more than 40-bits of length on the Internet
  43.                      unless the government is supplied a code key.
  44.  
  45.                      U.S. law allows encryptions of up to 56-bits if
  46.                      the government is given a key to the code, which
  47.                      it will hold in escrow in case a national security
  48.                      need arises.
  49.  
  50.                      Government vs. commerce
  51.  
  52.                      The government has argued that distribution of
  53.                      encryption codes outside of the United States
  54.                      would impede its ability to fight drug trafficking
  55.                      and political terrorism. Congress is considering
  56.                      bills to loosen these restrictions.
  57.  
  58.                      But Internet users and Internet technology
  59.                      companies argue that the restrictions impede
  60.                      electronic commerce and widespread use of the
  61.                      Internet for many private business transactions.
  62.  
  63.                      Because the Internet has no national borders,
  64.                      anything posted on it by a U.S. based company
  65.                      would be considered exporting.
  66.  
  67.                      Goldberg used about 250 computer workstations
  68.                      networked together to test various computations to
  69.                      break the code. The university said those
  70.                      resources would be pretty commonly available to
  71.                      people in university settings.
  72.  
  73.                      A matter of trust
  74.  
  75.                      At a data security and encryption conference being
  76.                      held here this week by RSA Data Security, people
  77.                      said Goldberg's break of the code is proof that
  78.                      U.S. laws need changing.
  79.  
  80.                      "Nobody in that room's going to trust 40-bit
  81.                      (cryptography) any more," said Peter Trei, senior
  82.                      software engineer at Process Software Corp., of
  83.                      Framingham, Massachusetts., as he nodded toward
  84.                      the San Francisco auditorium where 2,500 people
  85.                      were attending the cryptography conference.
  86.  
  87.                      The gathering included some of the world's leading
  88.                      experts on cryptography, and a number of panelists
  89.                      in presentations were openly critical of the White
  90.                      House policy of prohibiting export of strong
  91.                      cryptography.
  92.  
  93.                      Cryptography experts said the government policy
  94.                      must enable businesses to stay ahead of the
  95.                      capabilities of computer hackers, but that current
  96.                      standards do not allow this to be exported, which
  97.                      also can limit Internet distribution.
  98.  
  99.                      Copyright 1997 Reuters Limited. All rights
  100.                      reserved.
  101.  
  102.  
  103.                               ⌐ 1997 Cable News Network, Inc.
  104.                                     All Rights Reserved.
  105.  
  106.                      Terms under which this service is provided to you.
  107.