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Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption Standard

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Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption Standard Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption Standard Matt Blaze AT&T Bell Laboratories [email protected] August 20, 1994 Abstract The proposal, called the Escrowed Encryption Stan- dard (EES) [NIST94], includes several unusual fea- The Escrowed Encryption Standard (EES) de¯nes tures that have been the subject of considerable de- a US Government family of cryptographic processors, bate and controversy. The EES cipher algorithm, popularly known as \Clipper" chips, intended to pro- called \Skipjack", is itself classi¯ed, and implemen- tect unclassi¯ed government and private-sector com- tations of the cipher are available to the private sec- munications and data. A basic feature of key setup be- tor only within tamper-resistant modules supplied by tween pairs of EES processors involves the exchange of government-approved vendors. Software implementa- a \Law Enforcement Access Field" (LEAF) that con- tions of the cipher will not be possible. Although Skip- tains an encrypted copy of the current session key. The jack, which was designed by the US National Security LEAF is intended to facilitate government access to Agency (NSA), was reviewed by a small panel of civil- the cleartext of data encrypted under the system. Sev- ian experts who were granted access to the algorithm, eral aspects of the design of the EES, which employs a the cipher cannot be subjected to the degree of civilian classi¯ed cipher algorithm and tamper-resistant hard- scrutiny ordinarily given to new encryption systems. ware, attempt to make it infeasible to deploy the sys- By far the most controversial aspect of the EES tem without transmitting the LEAF. We evaluated system, however, is key escrow. As part of the crypto- the publicly released aspects of the EES protocols as synchronization process, EES devices generate and ex- well as a prototype version of a PCMCIA-based EES change a \Law Enforcement Access Field" (LEAF). device. This paper outlines various techniques that This ¯eld contains a copy of the current session key enable cryptographic communication among EES pro- and is intended to enable a government eavesdropper cessors without transmission of the valid LEAF. We to recover the cleartext. The LEAF copy of the ses- identify two classes of techniques. The simplest al- sion key is encrypted with a device-unique key called low communication only between pairs of \rogue" par- the \unit key", assigned at the time the EES device is ties. The second, more complex methods permit rogue manufactured. Copies of the unit keys for all EES de- applications to take unilateral action to interoperate vices are to be held in \escrow" jointly by two federal with legal EES users. We conclude with techniques agencies that will be charged with releasing the keys that could make the ¯elded EES architecture more to law enforcement under certain conditions. robust against these failures. At present, two EES devices are being produced. The simplest, the Clipper chip (also known as the MYK-78), is essentially a drop-in replacement for a 1 Introduction and Background conventional DES [NBS77] chip and relies on key nego- tiation being handled o® the chip. The other EES de- In April 1993, the Clinton Administration an- vice, the Capstone chip (MYK-80), adds built-in sup- nounced a proposed new federal standard symmetric- port for public-key negotiation and digital signatures, key encryption system for the protection of sensitive- with modular arithmetic functions, random number but-unclassi¯ed government and civilian data [Mar93]. generation, and other such features. The interface to the Skipjack cipher is similar to °c 1994. This is a pre-print of a paper to appear at the 2nd that of DES, based on a 64 bit codebook block cipher ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Fairfax, VA, November 1994. and supporting FIPS-81 [NBS80] standard modes of operation. Keys are 80 bits in length, as opposed to DES's 56 bits. The initial application of EES is in stand-alone voice encryption telephone units, such as the AT&T Model 3600 Telephone Security Device. To facilitate 80 bits computer applications such as electronic mail and ¯le encryption, a version of the Capstone chip will also Session key IV & other variables be available packaged in a standard PCMCIA card. EES PCMCIA cards can be installed easily in many commercially available laptop computers, and SCSI- Skipjack encrypt 16 bit checksum based PCMCIA card readers can connect EES cards (unit key) function to most other computers. The government has spec- i¯ed a standard application interface library for com- municating with the cards. 32 bits 80 bits 16 bits Clipper and Capstone chips are, at present, avail- Unit ID Encrypted Session Key chksum able only for use in approved products that comply with LEAF handling requirements. EES PCMCIA cards, on the other hand, are themselves a stand-alone product, and are to be made generally available \o® Skipjack encrypt the shelf" in the United States. (global family key) The government has stated that the goal of the EES is to make a strong cipher available for legitimate use without supplying criminals and other adversaries 128 bits with a tool that can be used against American in- LEAF terests or to hide illegal activities from law enforce- ment. Thus the system is intended to be di±cult to deploy without also sending a valid LEAF and thereby Figure 1: LEAF Structure exposing the tra±c to the possibility of government monitoring. In this paper, however, we show that it is possible to construct applications that can enjoy use of the Skipjack cipher but that do not admit law ¯rst must intercept the LEAF and the tra±c itself enforcement access through the LEAF. For the pur- using conventional data wiretapping technology. The poses of this paper, we consider two classes of \rogue" LEAF is decrypted with the family key, revealing the EES applications: those that can communicate only chip serial number, the unit key-encrypted session key with other rogue systems and those that can success- and the LEAF checksum. The chip serial number is fully interoperate with EES \legal" systems as well. provided, with appropriate authorization, to the two The latter category especially threatens the goals of escrow agencies, which each return half of the unit key the EES program, since such rogue applications would for the given serial number. The two half-unit keys can be operationally equivalent to their legal counterparts be combined (by bitwise exclusive-or) to produce the without being subject to government access. unit key, which the law enforcement agency can then use to decrypt the session key. This session key can 1.1 LEAF Structure and Protocols then be used to decrypt the actual tra±c. The LEAF is a 128 bit structure containing enough The wiretapping system thus relies on the availabil- information for law enforcement recovery of the ses- ity of the LEAF along with the encrypted tra±c. To sion key with the cooperation of the two agencies hold- force applications to send the LEAF on the same chan- ing the unit key database. The structure contains a nel as the tra±c, EES devices will not decrypt data 32 bit unique unit identi¯er (the serial number of the until they have received a valid LEAF for the current chip that generated the LEAF), the current 80 bit ses- session key. Presumably, EES devices perform various sion key (encrypted with the device's unit key) and a integrity checks on received LEAFs prior to accepting 16 bit LEAF checksum. The entire structure is en- them. crypted with a ¯xed \family key" to produce the ¯nal LEAF message. All cryptographic operations employ To provide a convenient application interface for symmetric (secret) key techniques. The family key is LEAF management, EES devices generate and load shared by all interoperable EES devices. The family LEAFs along with the FIPS-81 initialization vectors key, the encryption modes used to encrypt the unit (IVs). The devices provide \generate IV" and \load key and the LEAF message, and the details of the IV" functions that operate on 192 bit ¯elds containing checksum are all secret. Externally, the LEAF is an an unencrypted 64 bit IV concatenated with the 128 opaque 128 bit package. See Figure 1. bit encrypted LEAF. The load IV operation fails if the To decrypt EES tra±c, a law enforcement agency associated LEAF does not pass an integrity check. 1.2 Experimental Observations only the checksum, and the checksum appears at the end of the LEAF in public documents, we can Most details of the LEAF creation method, encryp- conclude that at least one of the following is true: tion modes, and data structures, beyond those men- tioned above, are classi¯ed and are therefore unknown { The LEAF is encrypted with a non-standard to us. In particular, the EES standard does not specify mode in which cleartext in \late" blocks af- the exact mechanism that enforces the transmission of fects the early ciphertext. the correct LEAF. However, we were able to perform { The LEAF is encrypted with a standard a number of simple experiments on our prototype de- forward-chaining or stream mode but the vices to con¯rm and expand our knowledge of LEAF checksum appears in the ¯rst cipherblock of internals. All experiments were performed at the pro- the LEAF. tocol level through the standard interface and did not { The LEAF is encrypted with a standard involve cryptanalysis or direct hardware \reverse en- forward-chaining or stream mode but the gineering." We summarize our observations below. current session IV is itself used to initialize it. LEAF integrity is veri¯ed entirely via redundancy ² in the checksum ¯eld.
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