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To: Jerry Salem who wrote (722)	9/16/1999 2:24:00 PM
From: Jerry Salem	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1285

September 14, 1999 By JERI CLAUSING Administration Plans to Loosen Encryption Restrictions ASHINGTON -- The Clinton Administration, facing mounting pressure to eliminate controls on the export of encryption technology, is preparing to announce a further loosening of the controversial restrictions. The planned changes come on the heels of a report from a special presidential advisory committee recommending the White House abandon nearly all export controls on software that protects Internet communications. They also come as the House is preparing to debate a bill that would lift most controls on the export of products intended to keep computer communications and transactions secure. William Reinsch, the Undersecretary of Commerce and President Clinton's point man on encryption policy, declined to comment on the upcoming announcement or the advisory committee's report, which has not been made public. But he said the Administration's new policy would be announced by September 16. The changes, he said, are the "result of our own policy review," although he did acknowledge that the advisory commission report "was valuable input into that." That upcoming policy change comes exactly one year after Vice President Al Gore first announced the Administration was lifting controls on the export of strong encryption to certain business sectors, like banks and insurance companies, and was providing limited export relief for mass market products. At the time, Gore promised the Administration would review the controls again within a year. Since then, the Administration has come under continued pressure to move even further, both from Congress and the President's encryption advisory panel. In June, the President's Export Council Subcommittee on Encryption sent the White House a report recommending the Administration loosen its restrictions on encryption technology to allow for the export of consumer products based on a 128-bit key. That is significantly stronger than the current limit on encryption products exempt from control. The report also recommended allowing the export of a broad range of encryption products to online merchants who need powerful security systems to do business; eliminating approval requirements on exports to countries that "do not present a significant national security concern," and giving preferential treatment to exports aimed at utilities, telecommunications companies and other infrastructure sectors at risk of hacking attacks. White House and Commerce Department officials are keeping quiet about how far the policy changes will go. But if the changes reflect recommendations made in the advisory panel's report, it would move the Administration much closer to ending its years-long battle with the high-tech industry. Technology executives say they are losing their lead to companies in countries without export restrictions. The Administration has resisted calls to eliminate the restrictions because of strong opposition from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other law enforcement agencies. Those groups have been pushing tying any easing of export restrictions to mandates that software developers develop "spare keys" so law officers can easily unlock scrambled data and communications when they suspect a crime is being committed. Stewart Baker, a member of the advisory panel and former counsel to the National Security Agency, characterized the committee's report as "the most sweeping set of liberalizations that have ever been recommended by a government advisory body." Although some who have been fighting the Administration's export controls doubt the planned changes will go far enough to effect a truce with House and Senate leaders pushing legislation to eliminate export controls entirely, Baker said he remained optimistic that substantial revisions would still be made. "I think it's in play," said Baker. "There's still some possibility that this will turn out to be a smaller package than some might hope, but it's still open." Ed Gillespie, executive director of Americans for Computer Privacy, a coalition of high-tech and civil libertarian groups that have for years been pushing for an elimination of all export controls on data-scrambling technology, said adoption of the advisory committee report by the White House would be significant. "But we don't know what to expect at this point. We're watching like everyone else," he said. "If it's good, great. If not, we'll continue to advocate change."

To: Jerry Salem who wrote (722)	9/25/1999 4:24:00 PM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1285

Pentagon gets 'smart' Military smart cards will access nets, encrypt data. Printer friendly version Send this article to a colleague By ELLEN MESSMER Network World, 09/20/99 WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. military says it will phase out plastic identification cards in favor of a chip-based multi-application smart card that about 800,000 personnel will carry. The Defense Department smart card will hold digital certificates that will allow the holder to sign and encrypt documents or purchase orders, and will be the means to access networks managed by the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. This smart card ID will also eventually be the key used to physically enter restricted buildings. Corporations are bound to follow the Defense Depart-ment's smart card lead, particularly contractors that share access to government networks. Civilian employees working for the military may soon begin using the smart cards, too. For three years, the U.S. military has conducted operational testing of smart cards for network access, as well as for storing medical information and for use as digital cash. Now the Pentagon, which sets technical strategy for the armed forces, is aiming to achieve what is probably the largest smart card rollout in history. The Defense Department considers the rollout an important part of its commitment to fully adopt electronic commerce. Desktops will need a card reader into which users will insert their smart cards, which will contain digital certificates and applications such as Novell NetWare log-on scripts. While the cards provide an extra measure of security and portability, passwords will still be necessary to use the digital certificates. Those certificates also let the user digitally "sign" or encrypt applications. In addition, the Pentagon wants this smart card to be so intelligent that it can let its holder into a restricted building. The General Services Administration has been given the task of defining a government standard for the card. "We want the smart card ID card to also support building access," says Marv Langston, deputy assistant secretary of defense. "This one common card will also be for standard access to the network." One factor driving the conversion from plastic IDs to crypto-based smart cards is the fact that the Internet has made it easy to get fake military IDs. "We cannot trust the ID card anymore," says Rob Brandewie, deputy director of the Defense Manpower Data Center West in Monterey, Calif., which maintains an Oracle database, servers and mainframes to keep track of more than 250,000 personnel changes every day. The formidable job of converting from plastic IDs to smart cards - expected to be formally announced this week by the Defense Department's top gun on technology issues, Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre - has already quietly begun. The Defense Manpower Data Center provides remote access to the proprietary client-based Real-Time Automated Personnel ID System (RAPIDS), which each year churns out three million plastic ID cards, which double as passports for soldiers. RAPIDS interfaces with the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting Systems (DEERS), a database that tracks 13 million current and retired personnel globally in terms of their location and benefits eligibility. Brandewie says his data center has demonstrated it can take the information from existing systems and use it to issue smart card IDs instead of the plastic ones. The DEERS database is also being used to store each military employee's fingerprint as a 500-byte compressed image. This fingerprint will go on the smart card ID as the biometric for fingerprint-based authentication in the future. The idea is that no one will get a digital certificate for their smart card until they can prove their identity by passing a network-based ID check based on fingerprint biometrics. The smart card - whether from GemPlus, Schlumberger or other vendors - has become a commodity, says Martha Neal, deputy director of the Defense Department's smart card technology office. "They're $3 apiece now, down from $5 a year ago," Neal says, adding that storing multiple applications on the cards is the way to hold down costs. The Defense Department will now establish what it calls the Configuration Management Control Board, which will define the smart card's memory and application specification and a Web-based certificate authority - a huge technical challenge. Public-key infrastructure products from Netscape, called iPlanet, are licensed to the Defense Department and will be tested at the Defense Manpower Data Center next month for issuing digital certificates on smart cards. There is an expectation that smart card IDs that can store a soldier's military records will reduce the paperwork load because networked applications will be able to upload the soldier's ID and download new information related to training or credentials. Col. Greg Miller, who works at the Air Expeditionary Force Battle Lab at Mountain Home Air Force base in Idaho, hopes "the hand-carried smart card will offer the benefit of one-time data entry." Barbara Straw, director of dispersing at the Naval Systems Command Supply, assisted in a pilot project on the USS Yorktown, which got ATM-like machines to dispense digital cash directly into a sailor's smart card in place of paper money. The digital cash is used on board to buy items in the closed world of the carrier at sea. Straw says she would like to see a standardized "electronic cash purse application" on the military smart card, too. nwfusion.com