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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Thu May 27 1999 - 23:44:23
Vin McLellan (vin@shore.net)
Wed, 28 Apr 1999 22:32:14 -0400
Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net> noted:
>> Last I heard the FIREFLY family of protocols used in STU-III >>remain
classified.
A finicky fellow, Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>, stepped in to
briskly correct me:
>The FIREFLY protocol is specified in RFC 1217.
Nope. Gotta watch those quick greps.
Search Engine results can be misleading.
RFC 1217 was issued 1 April 1991 in the name of V. Cerf.
It was titled: "Memo from the Consortium for Slow Commotion
Research (CSCR)."
The reference to "Firefly" crypto in 1217 is informative, and --
given that the NSA's internal development of the FIREFLY protocols goes way
back -- may have actually been intended as a comment on the Agency's design
effort. It was, however, something less than the treasonous publication of
classified type-1 crypto by that noted revolutionary author.
RFC 1217:
> (c) Firefly cryptography. A random signal (mason jar full of
> fireflies) is used to encipher the transmitted signal by
> optical combining. At the receiving site, another jar of
> fireflies is used to decipher the message. Since the
> correlation between the transmitting and receiving firefly
> jars is essentially nil, the probability of successful
> decipherment is quite low, yielding a very low effective
> transmission rate.
Slow commotion research, indeed.
Watch out for IETF pubs dated April 1, any year, Anon. The stellar
pattern of the cosmos on that date realligns and reignites the adolescent
hormones of American academics in such a way to make documents issued on
that date by either Global Governments or wannabe volunteer groups highly
suspect.
On any other day, of course, you can be certain that behind every
Request for Comment is an IEFT Work Group eager for your critical feedback
-- even if it is not nearly as informed by special interests, studied
biases, and exotic politics as their published opinion is certain to be.
Suerte,
_Vin
--------
"Cryptography is like literacy in the Dark Ages. Infinitely potent,
for good and ill... yet basically an intellectual construct, an idea,
which by its nature will resist efforts to restrict it to bureaucrats
and others who deem only themselves worthy of such Privilege."
_A Thinking Man's Creed for Crypto _vbm
* Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin@shore.net> *
53 Nichols St., Chelsea, MA 02150 USA <617> 884-5548
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Thu May 27 1999 - 23:44:23