Re: Terrorist Crypto Files Decrypted by USG (fwd)

[Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>]

At 06:29 AM 6/25/99 -0400, John Young wrote:
>Was there decryption? That's not clear from the broadcast.
>Encrypted files were found, so it's said, then with not much
>specific details the reporter goes into speculation about what
>lethal information was in them.
>
>It sounds as though she was briefed by an official who employed
>the dread word "encrypted" and who then drew conclusions
>to fit the horsemen line: encrypted files must contain the godawful,
>otherwise why encrypt.

The inference is also being made that the encrypted files were decrypted.
This is often not necessary to know most of whats in them.

It is quite possible that plaintext versions were found e.g., in a W95
swap file; or a backup file for some word processor; or 'deleted' but not
wiped versions.

Even the latest, slickest PGP plug ins do not have arabic fonts
for their secure readers, AFAIK.  Perhaps an insecure arabic-font word
processor was used on an insecure OS.  Plenty of weak links.

But the FUD instilled in the lay citizen/criminal (soon to be no
difference!) by hearing the report is:
golly, uncle sam can even decrypt 'terrorist' (tm) files,
so why bother using it?

The moral of the story is 1. proper infosec training should be
integrated into mujadahiin training 2. the Al Quesa standard platform/tools
needs a security review.

Unicode akbar!