);>.L. 8 6-3 6 TOP SECRET iJOl]JllJlilCb ~l!CSlJJCilOV\J lil~CSlllCB\J r-----------J u (!1[5(!J ~(!1[5 l!I~ 0015UJfill5 f 00 UJ~~l1~lllfil IBCE~l1Ul!JC1l!JI] JAN-MAR 1985 VIDEO TELECONFERENCING (U) ••••••••••••• ; • • • • • • • \ ••••••••••• 1 LETTER TO THE EDITOR (U) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• '·. ~ . ;., ••••••••••• 4 A MESSAGE TO CRYPTANALYSTS EVERYWHERE (U} ••••••• 'THE MAD HATTE!t' .\ ••.••••••• 5 I WOULDN'T HAVE MISSED IT FOR THE WORLD! (U) .... Mary Ann Hsrris'on.\ .......... 6 SHELL GAME (U) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• W.E.S ••••••• ~ •• 1, •• ;, ••••••••• 8 BOOK REVIEW: \ EASE MY SORROWS (U.) ••••••••••••••••••••••••• l • \ ! ........ 9 BULLETIN BOARD ( U) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• '· ••• \••••••••••• 13 A NOTE ON IMPROVING CRYPTOLOGIC RESEARCH (U) .... Nathaniel C . ) Gerkon ........ 14 FOOD FOR THOUGHT (U) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• )•••• l ••••••••• • 15 ATRAVELER'STALE(UL ......................... I • !.... , ..... 16 TYME SHELL (U) ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• I !............... 17 ON EXCELLENCE ( U) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• ·•••••••••••••• 18 FROM THE PAST (U) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 19 NSA-CROSTIC NO. 60 (U) •••••••••••••••••••••••••• D.H.W •••••••••••••••••••••• 20 THIS B6Cl:l'MEN'f CON~AINS 60913\VOIUl MAT~Rll:L 81'*8BIPil!B BY ff!Hif85Sll lt5 ! BS9m':SSIF¥ 9H1 9rigiRa,iR@ 1 TOP SECRET lsa•2;s e PatowiG 0 tion Req·dred Declassified and Approved for Release by NSA on 10-16-2012 pursuant to E 0. 13526, MOR Case # 54 773 OCID: 4009937 Published by Pl, Techniques and -Standards VOL. XII, No. 1-3 JANUARY-MARCH 1985 PUBLISHER BOARD OF EDITORS . Editor .•••••......,.! _______.! (963-1103s) L---------'I retirt?d on J 1 December. Dur­ Production .•..•.. J l(963-3369s) . ing his stewardship as Editor he brought CRYP­ TOLOG into the contemporary world of word pro­ cessors and electronic mail. He started with the UNIX system, then wrote innumerable shells Collection ••.......•...._I ____ _.H963-396ls) Computer Securitv specifically designed ta do CRYPTOLOG layout. ••••• t'-1--------'i(968-8242s) There are commands for the columnar format, Computer Systems.. J (963-1103s) for paragraphing with appropriate classifica­ Cryptanalysis .... .I (963-4 740s) tion, for indented inserts, far "bullets,• and Cryptolinguistics •.• I (963-19lls) for· many other_ editing cha res . There• s a lnfot'lllation Scie~n_c_e..._ _______.. - clev_er routine that allows the editor to make comments to the author via footnotes that do • .... I =--_I C963-s71h) Intelligence Research . not disrupt the text. ·And there are even com­ . .,---------"'! (963-3095s) mands which automatically go in effect at specified off hours to execute the nroff-type . Language ...L I (963-5151s) Lingui8t ics'1 )(963-3896e) shells for printing CRYPTOLOG. Mathematics ••• ! I (963-5655s) Puzzles .••••.•••. David H. William~~=- '_!,;,',! ( 963-Ll03s) Science and Technology = As a dyed-in-the-wool problem solver, Wayne ------------. (963-:4423s) al so tacl<l ed the mi nor annoyances endemic to Special Research . •••• Vera R. Filb:f. (968.:.8014s) any computer system. He did this by writing Traffic Analysis •. Robert J. Hanyoi (9'63-3888s) many useful shells to smooth the way for the general UNIX user, and published them in CRYP­ TOLOG. An example af this type appears else­ . :::: : : where in these pages. For subscriptions ~ 1 1 send name and organizadotj to :I IPlt · ·Access to electronic mail has been a spe­ cial --boon to one set of peopl·e, th.lt is, con­ tributors in the field. By courier mail, whether air or surface, turn-around time for P . L . 86- 36 · the usual sequence of submission, comment, re­ view, etc., is too long to be practicable. Haw, field contributors can get their articles To submit articles or letters to CRYPTOLOG via electronic mail faster than by mail, send to: Pl, Cryptolog HQ people do using internal Agency mail! via PLATFORM mail, send to: cryptolg at barlc~S Thanks, Wayne, and the very best to you (bar-one-c-zero-five) from all of us. (note: no '0 ' in 'log' ) Contents of Cryptolog should not be reproduced or further dlsse1111nated outside the National Security. Agency without the permission of the Publisher. Inquiries regarding reproduction and dissemination s.hould be dir~cted to the Editor. F8R 8FFI8li'rn lfBB BH'ErY 4009937 00HFl'BF.!N'f'[ltt: VID•O T•LBCONFBRBNCINQ: can It Increase SIGINT productivity? {u) i? •.L. 8 6-36 ....__ _____I P11 (U) Point-to-point video communication is severely limit its use. Even with state-of­ clearly the next step on the road to telepor­ the-art image compress ion techniques, normal tation ("Beam me down, Scotty")·. Once face­ TV bandwidth of 45 megabits (Mbits) can be re­ to-face visual exchanges become routine, only duced to oniy 1.5 Mbits, or, reportedly, to the olfactory and tactile senses will remain 750 kilobits (kbits). Equipment costs per to be remoted. Neither of· these has wide node with a fairly modest studio will run from usage in legally approved business trans­ $500k to $750k, that is, · $1M-$L5M fo~ each act ions. two-station link. Space requirements, servic­ ing, and management overhead add further direct and indirect costs. Annual communica­ -fe7 The increasing use of point-to-point tions costs for leasing fully dedicated chan­ video in the commercial world makes it impor­ nels bring total costs to an even larger fig­ tant that the SIGINT community get some ure. experience with this type of communications facility in order to make an informed assess­ (U) To avoid making this heavy capital in­ ment of its applicability to SIGINT opera­ vestment, businesses are using AT&.T video con­ tions. The question then becomes: can facil­ ference studio facilities. Cost for a half­ ities of this type in fact increase produc­ hour video · connection between New ·York and tivity and the effectiveness · of operations London is now $2000; between New York and Los between NSA HQ and field units? To answer Angeles $700. Only in a very small percentage this question, Pl and T4 are "ointly conduct- of business transactions · can such costs be justified. Further, even if the beriefits of which is to give a video conferencing are substantial, they ·are, working-level personnel, for the most part, intangible. A using organ­ overseas, a chance to use ization, therefore, must not only be large video communications in actual operational enough to pay the high costs, it must also be exchanges. able to avoid close cost-benefit scrutiny. These facts effectively limit the user popula­ ~ The following is a discussion of tion for full-motion video facility to busi­ current technology and commercial applications ness officials at or near ·the chief executive of video telecommunications, and the results officer level, to high-ranking government of­ to date of the Pl/T4 tests. ficials, and to defense-related applications of critical importance. BACKGROUND (U) Savings in travel costs are invariably cited by both video equij>ment manufacturers (U) Because of the pervasiveness of mass­ and by users of video conference facilities as media television, system designers and poten­ the pay-off for video investment, but a.t a re­ tial video telecot1UDunications users in the cent symposium on video teieconferenc ing it business world have tended to focus on full­ was generally agreed by participants who have motion commercial television technology. But actually used a video ~ystem that a great pro­ bandwidth requirements and dollar costs portion of the trips "saved" would never haiTe P.L. 86-36 Jan-Mar 85 * ·CRYPTOLOG * Page l OCID· 4009937 ~QlWIBBfl'fl:At; been made in the first place. It was also and overseas elements and also by an increase noted that many of the high-level executives in the information content of post-TDY mes­ for whom full-motion video telecommunications sages and phone conversations. This appears facilities had been acquired found them incon­ to be the case even where, prior to the TDY, venient and an unsatisfactory substitute for personnel in the respective organizations have person-to-person contact. Phantom travel sav­ spoken together regularly on the secure phone. ings are nevertheless put forward regularly by It has also long been a fact of operational operational users of video systems to demon­ life that TDY budgets often fail to stretch strate, in terms acceptable to in-house cost much beyond the requirements of the "Chiefs" control authorities, that value is being re­ and very high priority projects, with little ceived for money spent. left for working level "Indians." Further, for a variety of reasons, it is often imprac­ (U) Another type of video technology with tical to take productive personnel off ongoing much lower investment and operating costs is tasks for a one- or two-week TDY trip. freeze-frame video. It is being used increas­ ingly by business organizations to link (U) A second motivation for the tests was a working-level technical specialists at widely two-sided one: a desire (1) to avoid getting separated sit es. IBM, for example, has a 60- caught up in the high-tech hype which usually s ite worldwide network set up primarily to accompanies the appearance of a new technique serve programmer personnel. and too often generates imaginary and expen­ sive requirements for "gold-plated" systems; (U) In a freeze-frame system, instead of and (2) to ensure that operational and intel­ sending 30 image-frames per second, as is the lectual inertia does not prevent timely ac­ case in full-motion video, single images are quisition by the SIGINT community of video sent at intervals which are a function of the communications if, in fact, such support would bandwidth used. For example, when a 9.6-kbit be operationally useful and cost-effective. voice-grade circuit is used, successive un­ compressed color images (512 x 240 pixels, 6- (U) The initial aim of the test, therefore, bit resolution) can be sent every 78 seconds; is to find out whether some of the benefits of with 64 kbits, a new image can be transmitted TDY visits can be obtained by a video confer­ approximately every 10 seconds; and with 200 ence facility.