Escrowed Encryption Standard
The Escrowed Encryption Standard ( EES ) is a chip- bound symmetrical encryption system developed in the USA in April 1993 . The NSA is considered to be the developer of the algorithm .
The biggest difference to other encryption methods is that, if necessary, US authorities can get access to the keys that are used by two users to exchange data .
The procedure is specified in such a way that eavesdropping requires two keys that are deposited with different authorities and that should only be released at the same time by a judicial order.
This official access option is not achieved by a built-in back door in the technical sense, but by storing two partial keys. If the legal conditions are met, the two key parts will be released and merged.
It was criticized early on that the communication protocol defined at the same time as the method had weaknesses that at least make an attack easier. At the same time, weaknesses were identified in a predecessor algorithm for the skipjack process used.
The clipper chip should be built into telephones for the encryption of voice communication . The Capstone chip should be used to encrypt data . Installation in PCs and use by applications and operating systems should be enforced by law, but was later rejected.
literature
- NIST (Ed.): Escrowed Encryption Standard (EES) (= Federal Information Processing Standards Publication . No. 185 ). 1994 ( nist.gov [PDF]).
- Battle of the Clipper Chip . In: New York Times . June 12, 1994 ( nytimes.com ).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Matthias Schulze: Crypto Wars: The old song for 40 years . Tresorit Blog, November 30, 2016; accessed November 30, 2016