New York Times - March 20, 1997

Code Set Up to Shield Cellular Calls Breached

   By JOHN MARKOFF

   excerpt

   "The industry design process is at fault," said David Wagner, a
   University of California at Berkeley researcher who was a member of
   the team that broke the code. "We can use this as a lesson, and save
   ourselves from more serious vulnerabilities in the future."

   ...

   These technologists, who planned to release their findings in a news
   release on Thursday, argue that the best way to insure that the
   strongest security codes are developed is to conduct the work in a
   public forum. And so they are sharply critical of the current industry
   standard setting process, which has made a trade secret of the
   underlying mathematical formulas used to create the security codes.

   "Our work shows clearly why you don't do this behind closed doors,"
   Schneier said. "I'm angry at the cell phone industry because when they
   changed to the new technology, they had a chance to protect privacy
   and they failed."

   Carroll, head of the industry's privacy committee, said it planned to
   revise the process for reviewing proposed technical standards.