On Sun, Mar 30, 2003 at 07:38:29PM -0500, reusch wrote: > > I'm amazed at their claims of radio interception. One would > expect that all US military communications, even trivial ones, > are strongly encrypted, given the ease of doing this. Someone, > more well informed, please reassure me that this is the case.
It's not the case. I routinely listen in on communications. Most of the planes have either KY-57 or Have Quick. The KY is digital and probably better than DES encryption. Adequate except for stupidly using AM (Amplidude Modulation, aka ancient modulation) which along with poor maintenance makes it often unusable. Have Quick is actually anti-jam and often mistaken for encryption. Likely the Russians can read it. The real problem is that flaky encrypted comms are a tactical problem so it is often better to use clear comms when time is the issue. Not too helpful to know what's about to happen if you can't do anything about it anyway. > Otherwise, yet another thing is very wrong about this war and > the infrastructure that supports it. -MFR It's amazing to me to listen to engineers try a test 15 times and then when it finally works, declare victory and go on to the next one. The military industrial complex is about money, not reliable high-tech systems. I was more impressed with American expertise 40 years ago than I am now. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- | 73, E-mail | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Lyn Kennedy webpage | http://home.earthlink.net/~lrkn | | K5QWB ICBM | 32.5 North 96.9 West | ---Livin' on an information dirt road a few miles off the superhighway--- --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]