From: karn@servo.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn)
Subject: Re: Re-inventing Crypto Policy?  An EFF Statement
Nntp-Posting-Host: servo.qualcomm.com
Reply-To: karn@chicago.qualcomm.com
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc
Lines: 17

In article <1qna0tINNf5p@rodan.UU.NET>, avg@rodan.UU.NET (Vadim Antonov) writes:
|> I somehow started to doubt technical competence of the
|> people who designed the system.  Why on the Earth split the
|> 80-bit key in 40-bit parts to keep them in escrow separately
|> (having 40 bit and large volumes of data voice links produce
|> it should be relatively easy to break it) when they simply
|> could keep 80-bit sequences in N (N>=2) independent places
|> and then XOR all the partial keys to get the actual key (N-1
|> sequences should obviously be selected randomly and Nth is the
|> actual key XOR-ed with the random sequences).

Without real technical details, it's hard to answer this question. But
suppose they already *are* XORing the two 40-bit parts to produce only
40 bits of real key material? Maybe they're using the exportable version
of RC2...? :-)

PHil
