Encryptions Essay Example for Free

Encryptions Essay In this report I have discussed that the encryption technology is necessary for citizens to protect their privacy and security when using computer networks. Otherwise, medical records, credit card numbers, trade secrets, as well as personal communications relayed over computer networks are not safe from prying eyes. Also I have presented an arguments in favor of encryption that it offers a method of denying access to adversaries, improves security by protecting against spoofing, offers a device for recovering costs plus imposing fees and protects private DGPS providers from government competition. Furthermore I have also explained some arguments against encryption that to put into practice it would potentially weaken U. S. leadership in GPS by encouraging international augmentations that lacked encryption, need a multifaceted key management infrastructure, need a major redesign and development endeavor, causing delays and escalating costs to the government, make innovative safety risks if the key management system failed, mainly in an emergency. Thus the transaction costs imposed by encryption would have to be balanced against the benefits expected. Introduction Encryption software enciphers data sent over computer networks, in order that merely people with special information for instance a secret key can read the plaintext of the message. The key is a string of numbers. The longer the string, the harder it is to break. In January 2000 the Department of Commerce announced new encryption export policy. Under the new system, U. S. companies may export any encryption product around the world to private-sector end users or commercial firms after a one-time technical review. Encryption products that the Bureau of Export Administration (BXA) determines fall into the category of â€Å"retail encryption commodities and software† can be exported to anyone. In determining which products fit the meaning, the BXA will think about the products function, sales volume, plus distribution methods. Publicly available source code may be exported with no technical review. The relaxation of export controls on products planned for e-commerce merchants, financial institutions, and others is a step in the right direction. However problems remain. First, the â€Å"publicly available† or â€Å"sales volume† tests doom U. S. companies to lag behind foreign cryptographers in offering innovative encryption products. No pioneer product is so far â€Å"publicly available† or has a large sales volume. The revised encryption rules therefore still permit foreign cryptographers to take the lead in developing new crypto products. Second, any encryption products have to be submitted for a technical review before release. This means that encryption will not be built into most mass-market products. For instance, it would make sense to construct an encryption option into a standard e-mail program. However, building encryption into an e-mail program would mean that the e-mail program could not be exported without a long, uncertain technical review. To stay away from the technical review, companies are probable to leave out the encryption function. Network security will carry on to suffer for the reason that encryption will not be built into mass-market products like e-mail or word processing programs. Third, the condition that encryption products be submitted for review before release violates the First Amendment. In April 2000 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals established that encryption source code is speech protected by the First Amendment. The obligation that encryption products be reviewed prior to release is a â€Å"prior restraint† on speech. Those problems with encryption export controls are extensively recognized. The alternatives to the controls, though, have barely been examined, with the exception of â€Å"key escrow,† or â€Å"key recovery. † Mainly, it is wrong to bar anyone from using nonescrow encryption to communicate when he has done nothing wrong. Demands for obligatory key escrow constitute an unparalleled power grab on the part of law enforcement officials. The police have always had the right, restricted by the Fourth Amendment, to intercept private communications and read them, if they could. The police have never had the right to demand that people change the language in which they communicate to make themselves easier to understand. There are further alternatives to encryption regulations for law enforcement. They comprise increased use of informants and other surveillance technologies for instance the planting of physical bugs or devices such as Tempest, which allows law enforcement to read the screen of a computer through walls or doors. Encryption export controls must be lifted without qualification. GPS-related cryptographic A GPS-related cryptographic system can be used for two reasons: denial of the signal to unauthorized users, as well as protection of the message itself to, prevent alterations or the creation of a substitute message. The former makes a vital portion of the message unavailable to non-authorized users. In military schemes preservation of a one-sided advantage may be of interest; in a commercial setting the capability to eliminate nonpaying users is essential to collect revenue. Authenticating the message through use of an encrypted signature block that may both authenticate the sender of the message and confirm the contents is consistent with application in the civil government sector, where making sure integrity of the message is significant. In a DGPS context, encryption might be inserted at one of several points in the transmission of the signal to the user. Encryption may defend the uplink in a satellite relay, the original messages to the satellite, also the command functions on the satellite. Or encryption might protect the signature region of a message that points out its authenticity and the integrity of the main message payload. A third option might be to encrypt the complete message. Other variants comprise encrypting merely selective portions of the message. Throughout the hearing, there was disagreement over how multifaceted the key management infrastructure needed to be. The underlying policy question was how protected and dependable the encryption must be. As Dr. Denning put it, in any encryption, something must remain secret. (Bruce Schnier, 1994). For some proprietary algorithms, no keys need to be distributed, and this is generally adequate for commercial systems for instance cable TV and the DGPS providers. If an open algorithm is used, keys and a related key management system are required to gain international acceptance. The desired future of electronic, over-the-air rekeying is not yet here. In the case of military systems, both keys as well as classified algorithms are used. There are a number of technical approaches that might be taken to encrypting the signals for local- and wide-area DGPS applications using private-key and Public-key encryption schemes. A few schemes involve over-the-air rekeying devices to enable/disable the capability of specific units to receive messages. Other schemes involve comparatively simple authentication mechanisms that would not have to be tied to individual units and would depend on the capability to avert alteration or forging of a message. As one would think, trying to deny signals to end-users is an involved process from the point of view of managing keys and of keeping track of which unit belongs to which person or group. Nonetheless, if the goal is to permit control of the use of a signal rather than, say, prevention of reception of the signal by cutting of transmissions in a given area, then one is forced to these more elaborate schemes. (Simon Garfinkel, 1995) The objective of encryption must be decided before selecting a particular approach. If the main goal is authenticating the message and preventing false messages, there is no need to go to the expense and intricacy of a system that refutes the fundamental message by encrypting the entire message stream. If encrypting the stream in the future is desired, it may be appropriate to use a more complicated scheme as long as the possible future benefits are expected to offset related costs and possible opposition. The intricacy of denial-focused approaches plus the apparition of selectively controlling the signal will make incentives for alternative standards and systems outside of U. S. control.