Leonid Reyzin at Boston University has drafted a letter in response to the recent article published in the Notices by Michael Wertheimer of the NSA (discussed here). He’s collecting signatures, and if you’re a member of the AMS I urge you to consider contacting him and adding yours. If you know others who might be interested in signing, please forward the link to them.
About
Quantum Theory, Groups and Representations
Not Even Wrong: The Book
Subscribe to Blog via Email
Join 674 other subscribersRecent Comments
- Wick Rotating Weyl Spinor Fields 5
Peter Woit, Arnold Neumaier, Peter Woit, Arnold Neumaier, Matt+Grayson - The Impossible Man 32
Thomas, Cormac O'Raifeartaigh, Phil H, Matthias, Peter Woit, John Baez [...] - This Week's Hype 6
Peter Woit, Peter, Peter Woit, Velvet, Peter Woit, Leo - The Crisis in String Theory is Worse Than You Think... 44
Andy Colombo, Matthew Foster, Mitchell Porter, Scott Caveny, Matthew Foster, Peter Woit [...] - Why Sabine Hossenfelder is Just Wrong 20
Peter Woit, Arnold Neumaier, Peter Woit, Curious Fish, Peter Woit, anon [...]
- Wick Rotating Weyl Spinor Fields 5
Categories
- abc Conjecture (21)
- Book Reviews (123)
- BRST (13)
- Euclidean Twistor Unification (16)
- Experimental HEP News (153)
- Fake Physics (8)
- Favorite Old Posts (50)
- Film Reviews (15)
- Langlands (52)
- Multiverse Mania (163)
- Not Even Wrong: The Book (27)
- Obituaries (35)
- Quantum Mechanics (24)
- Quantum Theory: The Book (7)
- Strings 2XXX (27)
- Swampland (20)
- This Week's Hype (142)
- Uncategorized (1,291)
- Wormhole Publicity Stunts (15)
Archives
Links
Mathematics Weblogs
- Alex Youcis
- Alexandre Borovik
- Anton Hilado
- Cathy O'Neil
- Daniel Litt
- David Hansen
- David Mumford
- David Roberts
- Emmanuel Kowalski
- Harald Helfgott
- Jesse Johnson
- Johan deJong
- Lieven Le Bruyn
- Mathematics Without Apologies
- Noncommutative Geometry
- Persiflage
- Pieter Belmans
- Qiaochu Yuan
- Quomodocumque
- Secret Blogging Seminar
- Silicon Reckoner
- Terence Tao
- The n-Category Cafe
- Timothy Gowers
- Xena Project
Physics Weblogs
- Alexey Petrov
- AMVA4NewPhysics
- Angry Physicist
- Capitalist Imperialist Pig
- Chad Orzel
- Clifford Johnson
- Cormac O’Raifeartaigh
- Doug Natelson
- EPMG Blog
- Geoffrey Dixon
- Georg von Hippel
- Jacques Distler
- Jess Riedel
- Jim Baggott
- John Horgan
- Lubos Motl
- Mark Goodsell
- Mark Hanman
- Mateus Araujo
- Matt Strassler
- Matt von Hippel
- Matthew Buckley
- Peter Orland
- Physics World
- Resonaances
- Robert Helling
- Ross McKenzie
- Sabine Hossenfelder
- Scott Aaronson
- Sean Carroll
- Shaun Hotchkiss
- Stacy McGaugh
- Tommaso Dorigo
Some Web Pages
- Alain Connes
- Arthur Jaffe
- Barry Mazur
- Brian Conrad
- Brian Hall
- Cumrun Vafa
- Dan Freed
- Daniel Bump
- David Ben-Zvi
- David Nadler
- David Vogan
- Dennis Gaitsgory
- Eckhard Meinrenken
- Edward Frenkel
- Frank Wilczek
- Gerard ’t Hooft
- Greg Moore
- Hirosi Ooguri
- Ivan Fesenko
- Jacob Lurie
- John Baez
- José Figueroa-O'Farrill
- Klaas Landsman
- Laurent Fargues
- Laurent Lafforgue
- Nolan Wallach
- Peter Teichner
- Robert Langlands
- Vincent Lafforgue
Twitter
Videos
NSA strengthened DES against the then-classified technique of differential cryptanalysis by improving the S-boxes. It is not fair to say that NSA weakened DES by reducing its key length without looking at this.
Steve Huntsman,
Yes, suspicions about the DES S-boxes turned out to be unfounded (and the NSA via Richard George has used the AMS Notices to suggest that the same is true for DUAL_EC_DRBG). But that this suspicion was unfounded has nothing to do with the DES key length issue mentioned in the letter, where there seems to be no question that the NSA pushed for a shorter key length so that they could break such encryption. Even they haven’t tried to claim that shortening key length was a way to strengthen DES.
It says “blacklisting an inventor of DES from other cryptography jobs”. Who was that?
Wikipedia:
The team at IBM involved in cipher design and analysis included Feistel, Walter Tuchman, Don Coppersmith, Alan Konheim, Carl Meyer, Mike Matyas, Roy Adler, Edna Grossman, Bill Notz, Lynn Smith, and Bryant Tuckerman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard
You say: “there seems to be no question that the NSA pushed for a shorter key length so that they could break such encryption.”
There is some question about that. For details, see this AMS Notices article that only says:
“There have been persistent rumors that NSA had pressed for the shorter key length.”
http://www.ams.org/notices/200003/fea-landau.pdf
Yes, there were rumors, but I do not see those rumors confirmed anywhere.
details and a citation on the blacklist here (Horst Feistel is the guy)
http://ethanheilman.tumblr.com/post/108115952435/a-response-to-wertheimers-encryption-and-the-nsa
Roger,
“NSA tried to convince IBM to reduce the length of the key from 64 to 48 bits.” is not a “rumor”, it’s based on the declassified, sanitized version of the NSA’s own history. See the reference at the Wikipedia page.
I would like to sign something, but I don’t feel qualified to sign this particular letter, because it refers to a lot of history which I don’t really know anything about. I think one could get more signatures with a letter referring to broader principles, something along the lines of “The AMS should convene a task force to consider reducing or eliminating ties with the NSA, due to serious ethical concerns about this relationship [references].”
Is it only for members of the AMS?
In regards to the history of the DES key length it is from the NSA’s internal history, “Book III: Retrenchment and Reform” which can be found here at cryptome.
Also see NSA attempting to clamp down on feedback register techniques:
And ITAR restrictions which was used to threaten IEEE authors with censorship.
When threats didn’t work they attempted to slow down academics via other means.
Ninguem,
I don’t think signers necessarily need to be members of the AMS, you should contact Leonid Reyzin if you’d like to add your name.
Michael Hutchings,
The letter is specifically intended as a response to the Wertheimer article, but I completely agree that a letter of the sort you indicate would be a great idea (do you want to organize it?).
My impression is that when all this started post-Snowden, there was little enthusiasm at the AMS for taking any action to cut ties with the NSA. The decision was instead to encourage discussion, and that’s the goal of the Notices articles and letters. Interestingly, I haven’t seen much in the way of practical discussion of exactly what the AMS ties to the NSA are, and exactly what steps might be possible to change them. However, the two articles from NSA people it seems to me have helped make clear what the fundamental problem with that organization is: it operates outside the usual constraints of the bill of rights and democracy. As a result, people working there like George and Wertheimer find it natural to respond to the basic question (did the NSA backdoor DUAL_EC_DRBG?) by writing an evasive and misleading piece in the Notices. Their attitude appears to be that the public and the math community have no right to ask this kind of question, and deserve to be misled if they try.
This may be having an effect at the AMS, making people more open to a discussion about cutting ties with the NSA. I don’t know if a letter or other action is the best way to move this forward. As of this weekend the AMS has a new president (Robert Bryant), who may bring a different perspective to the question.
I was hoping for a letter that lots of people could sign to express their concern without having to know the detailed history. However the person who organizes this letter should probably still know what they are talking about, so I wouldn’t be the best person for the job. I could still do it though if no one else will. Maybe we should first see if Robert Bryant will do something.