One cannot predict the future with certainty, but it is probable that Skipjack will eventually be cracked … The second condition for the success of the Clipper chip, that it be accepted by the online community, will never be fulfilled.
Predictor: Wisebrod, Dov
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 research paper, Dov Weisbrod, co-founder and chair of the Legal Group for the Internet in Canada (LoGIC), writes: ”The American government framed the Escrowed Encryption Standard (EES), which would enable law enforcement agencies to monitor digital communication, while allowing the public automatic privacy protection. The physical component of the EES is the Clipper chip, a computer microchip containing a secret encryption algorithm, code-named Skipjack, that was developed by the National Security Agency (NSA) for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) … Recently, RSA 129, a version of the RSA encryption algorithm named after cryptographers Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir, and Leonard Adleman, was cracked. Mathematics had estimated that it would take 40 quadrillion years to break RSA 219, but it took a mere 17 years. One cannot predict the future with certainty, but it is probable that Skipjack will eventually be cracked … The second condition for the success of the Clipper chip, that it be accepted by the online community, will never be fulfilled … Any part of the EES that applies to the Internet will likely fail to be effective. It is too simple a task to circumvent the Clipper chip by using supplementary encryption, or to fool it by using LEAF modification. The EES is yet another example of the difficulty of regulating the electronic frontier.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: Security/Encryption
Name of publication: Controlling the Uncontrollable: Regulating the Internet
Title, headline, chapter name: The Clipper Chip
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.catalaw.com/dov/docs/dw-inet.htm
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Kildale, Tiffany Ann