GAK-killing amendments?

[Owen Lewis]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nicholas Bohm" <nbohm@ernest.net>
To: <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
Sent: 29 June 2000 23:08
Subject: Re: GAK-killing amendments?


> At 10:01 AM 6/29/2000 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:
> >In article <3.0.5.32.20000628195659.0092b220@mail.netkonect.co.uk>,
> >Nicholas Bohm <nbohm@ernest.net> writes

> >As I've said often before, it might be useful to split off GAK of crypto
> >keys from GAK of other forms of "Key" - for example the password to a
> >private PBX which contains some comms data which plod can make a case
> >for wanting to access himself.
>
> I suspect plod has long had these built in by kind arrangement of the
> friendly makers without any legal powers required.

The hack is often via the remote diagnostic port which almost all PABX
owners keep permanently enabled. Hacking into that port is generally fairly
trivial. Once you are in what you can do gets more tricky as on any of the
bigger systems there is layered access control, some of which is for the
commercial protection of the system's manufacturers. System security is
often most charitably described as an afterthought.

Owen Lewis