Dear Declan, Politech, Cryptographylist. It was reported in national media - including tv - that the police had succesfully _broken_ the encryption. This, it seems, is not the case. The police have managed to find the _passwords_ of the five encrypted computers. The information concerning the succesful decryption of the five computers protected with Safeguard Easy was presented in court by chief prosecutor Poul Gade. Investigation is lead by chief of police in Holstebro, Jens Kaasgaard. I have just interviewed Jens Kaasgaard. He says: 'To avoid misunderstandings, we haven't _broken_ Safeguard by technically breaking down the encryption. We have located the passwords in different ways. We have done it like any hacker would have done, by trying to figure out the most probable passwords. This has payed success in five cases.' 'After doing that we entered the document-parts, the harddisk of the computer. Here we found some of the files unencrypted and other files further encrypted.' 'When you use Safeguard you put a sort of shell around your data. This is the first part you need to enter. This is what is claimed to be impossible. It _is_ impossible. We have had six private companies looking at this, and they have all failed.' 'We have used completely ordinary police investigation methods. We know precisely who have had access to the encrypted machines. Then we can start assessing probabilities and calculate upon this and set up models for how, if you were a hacker, you'd find your way into the machines. That's what we have done.' _You did this yourself?_ 'Yes. We did this inside the police system.' -----Original Message----- From: Declan McCullagh To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 8/9/01 5:24 PM Subject: Danish police break "Safeguard" encryption program in tax case [From the cryptography mailing list. --Declan] ********** From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Bo_Elkj=E6r?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Utimacos Safeguard Easy broken by danish police in tax evation ca se Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 22:51:08 +0200 The german encryption program Safeguard Easy has been broken by the danish police. Today the police from the city Holstebro in Jutland presented evidence in court, that was provided after breaking the encryption on five out of sixteen computers that where seized april 25 this year. All 16 computers were protected with Safeguard Easy from the german encryption provider Utimaco. It is not known whether DES, 128-bit IDEA, Blowfish or Stealth was used as algorithm on the computers. All four algorithms are built in Safeguard Easy. Details are sparse. It is not known how the encryption was broken, whether it was brute forced or flaws in the program was exploited. The computers where seized from the humanitarian (leftwing) foundation Tvind (Humana) in connection with a case about tax evation. Among the evidence provided from the encrypted computers were emails sent among the leaders of the foundation, Poul Jorgensen and Mogens Amdi Petersen describing transfers of large sums of money. Apparantly, but not confirmed, british Scotland Yard has been involved in breaking the encryption. The danish police doesn't have the capacity to break encryption by themselves. Neither has the danish civilian intelligence service. Routine is that cases concerning encryption is handed over to the danish defence intelligence service DDIS. This procedure has been described earlier this year by the danish minister of justice in connection with another case. DDIS denies involvement with the Tvind case. Employees and leaders at Tvind has denied handing over their passwords to the computers. One even wrote a public letter mocking the chief of police in Holstebro, describing how he changed his password weekly, and stating that he'd probably even forgotten his password by now. At a time, the police concidered putting employees in custody until passwords were handed over. Thats all for now Bo Elkjaer, Denmark ******** Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 16:25:03 -0700 (PDT) From: "Jay D. Dyson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Utimacos Safeguard Easy broken by danish police in tax evation ca se -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Tue, 7 Aug 2001, [iso-8859-1] Bo Elkj=E6r wrote:=20 > All 16 computers were protected with Safeguard Easy from the german > encryption provider Utimaco. It is not known whether DES, 128-bit IDEA, > Blowfish or Stealth was used as algorithm on the computers. All four > algorithms are built in Safeguard Easy. Details are sparse. It is not > known how the encryption was broken, whether it was brute forced or > flaws in the program was exploited. =09If the OS used was Windows, it's quite likely that the plaintext and/or passphrases were recovered in the Windows swap file. Barring OS considerations, it's also possible that the police put a keystroke logger on the system, just as the FBI here in the States did with an organized crime suspect.=20 =09My gut sense is that, since only five of sixteen systems were "cracked," it seems likely that it was the swap file that let the cat out of the bag. Even so, a flaw in the cryptosystem should be investigated and proven or ruled out. =09Let us not also forget that people can be pressured to divulge passphrases. Rubber-hose cryptanalysis isn't just a humorous concept. - -Jay ( ( _______ )) )) .-"There's always time for a good cup of coffee."-. >=3D=3D= =3D=3D<--. C|~~|C|~~| (>------ Jay D. Dyson - [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------<) | =3D |= -' `--' `--' `-Speak softly and carry a thermonuclear warhead.-' `------' -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: See http://www.treachery.net/~jdyson/ for current keys. iQCVAwUBO3BqwrlDRyqRQ2a9AQFgLQP/cUACUkIv9xZI77Nh6nbwHlYi4bpDX94K wBJ22Gt6eAecC0NT4LpE5uKn/6AR8+KUD6jXSoefKsQQa+THCz+hrPMmowqzgtQ1 FQLvOK+7VBGckPztqOD6zimW0IPTYDzI5/uP8j6OxNyQJo2gX/y7uiIOCwZML9/i bHPhCzAdRGc=3D =3D57oN -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ********* --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]