UKcrypto Glossary

[Kieran Barry]

Hi,

I have encountered a problem from time to time due to intermittent
reading of the list. What has happened is that I've found myself
wondering "What the hell is ( PANTS | RIPA | GAK | Acronym or phrase
du jour)?"

Because I'm sure that I'm not the only person yet to get an acronym
babbelfish, I was wondering if we should introduce a UKcrypto glossary
posted at regular intervals. (I say glossary rather than an FAQ, since
any really interesting answers would have to deal with charges of
bias.)

Has this question been brought up before?

If not, to start the ball rolling, here are some which spring to mind.
(Please, no flames for my fearful ignorance....)


A5	Encryption algorithm for GSM phones
AES	Encryption algorithm standard adopted last year by the US to
replace
	DES. Actual algorithm is called Rijndael.
DES   Data Encryption Standard. Encryption algorithm designed in the
70s
	by IBM. Short key length means that it is now easily broken by
	exhaustive search.
FIPR	Foundation for Information Policy Research. British net policy
	think tank headed by Casper Bowden
GAK	Government Access to Keys. Frontline issue between Law enforcement
 	and civil liberties lobby
GCHQ	Britain's Government Communications HeadQuarters.
GSM	Global System for Mobiles. To a first approximation, the European
	phone standard.
LEA 	Law enforcement authority
PANTS	Possesion At Notice Time of Service. The condition needed before
	it is an offence not to comply with a RIP order to disclose
information
	(key or plaintext). Possession refers to possession of a relevant
	decryption key. (This could probably be reworded...)
PKI	Public key infrastructure.
RIP	Regulation of Investigatory Powers. UK law dealing with government
	interception rights.
RIPA	Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. See above. (Act is UK
legalese
	for a law that has been passed by parliament and signed by the Queen.
TEMPEST 	US government codeword for technology to control the radio
	emissions of electronic machinery.
Wassenaar	International treaty under which the signatories were
required
	to control traffick in weapons. It was used to limit the export of
	cryptographic software.

Wassenaar may not be relevant, and there are definitely other crypto
FAQs
out there. And until a decision is made over whether there is a role
for
such a glossary, I'm not going to devote too much time to this.

Is there a role?

Anyway, thoughts?

Kieran