Tapping Into High-Tech Talk : Device OKd to Help Feds Monitor Computer-Encoded Calls
In a move that raised privacy concerns, the Clinton Administration on Friday approved a new technology aimed at ensuring the government’s ability to eavesdrop on private communications for law enforcement and national security reasons.
The decision to secure government telephone calls and computer communications with a tiny encryption chip--from a pair of California companies--that can be tapped only by law enforcement is the first step in a broader government inquiry into a politically charged Information Age dilemma: how to enable industry and individuals to use computer coding to protect their communications without letting criminals and terrorists use the same technology to conspire to commit crimes.
The microchip approved by Clinton, known as a clipper chip, would not thwart criminals who use different encryption technology. And it does not address the wider problem of how to make digital transmissions more accessible to wiretapping.
But government officials said they hoped that by embracing an encryption standard that is based on secret government technology, they could use the government’s clout to encourage private industry and state and local governments to adopt the same technology.
The hope is that by establishing an accepted encryption technology, it would become so cheap and widespread that it would pervade telecommunications. Competing systems would then become so expensive that few criminals or others could afford them.
“Right now there’s only a small percentage of criminals using encryption,” said James K. Kallstrom, FBI section chief in the agency’s Quantico, Va. engineering research facility. “This could be an important tool in law enforcement” and discourage private encryption.
But several privacy groups decried the government’s approach.
“A system based on classified secret technology will not and should not gain the confidence of the American public,” said Mitchell Kapor, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Washington-based technology information group. “The Administration is to be commended for launching a broad inquiry into these critical problems, but they should not attempt to impose a solution before the process has begun.”
The decision to approve the technology could be a major boon for the two California companies that the government has initially selected to supply the microchips: Mykotronix of Torrance and VSLI Technology Inc. of San Jose.
The chips cost $25 each in lots of 10,000 or more. The government is expected to purchase tens of thousands for its own use. Meanwhile, communications and computer firms that do business with the federal government, such as AT&T;, have indicated they too will buy substantial quantities, said Raymond G. Kammer, acting director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The chip secures communications by electronically encrypting an algorithm on a callers’ message that contains a unique serial number and a unique key to decode the message.
In order to intercept and decipher a private message encoded by the chip, law enforcement would have to obtain a warrant to tap a suspect’s telephone, record the encrypted message and get two separate decoding keys to decrypt the recording. Officials said key holders have not been selected but could include such agencies as the U.S. Postal Service.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, contending that the rapidly advancing telecommunications field is hampering the vital tool of wiretapping, last year proposed legislation that would require the telecommunications industry to make sure technological improvements do not interfere with the agency’s ability to secretly record conversations.
It said that without such safeguards, terrorists and violent criminals would be able to carry out their activities using the telecommunications system without detection.
That concern is especially pronounced now as the telecommunications industry hurtles toward a digital information age in which high capacity fiber-optic and wireless communications systems will be able to transmit video, voice and other data to and from homes and businesses in quantities thousands of times greater than today.
The FBI has contended that the transmission of thousands of digital conversations over a single link prevents current wiretapping technology from isolating conversations for recording as required under the 1968 federal wiretap law.
“We want to strike a balance between the need for privacy and the government’s ability to intercept communications,” Kammer said on Friday, acknowledging the sensitivity of the issue.
