[ih] Yasha Levine's Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet -- Some Questions

[Vint Cerf]

I think the PLI supported an interface that made it transparently like the
IMP (BBN 1822 interface) so a  host would not know it was connected to
something other than an IMP but I am not absolutely sure.

v


On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 9:29 PM, Bill Ricker <bill.n1vux at gmail.com> wrote:

> Vint replied (not shouting) --
>
> > NO, IT WAS END-TO-END, SO THE MILNET LINKS WERE NOT
> > ENCRYPTED IF MEMORY SERVES. THE HOSTS ON EITHER
> > END OF THE PRIVATE LINE INTERFACE HAD ALL THEIR TRAFFIC
> > ENCRYPTED. OF COURSE IT STAYED ENCRYPTED AS IT TRAVERSED
> > THE INTERVENING IMPS OF THE MILNET AND/OR ARPANET.
> > MILNET DID NOT COME INTO EXISTENCE UNTIL THE TCP/IP
> > FLAG DAY, JANUARY 1983 BY THE WAY.
>
> I stand corrected that i shouldn't have referred to the PLI-eligible
> Military hosts attached to on NCP (D)ARPAnet as MILNET.
> :-)
>
> Ok, for this thread OP request :
> Were the PLI in use pre-TCP ?
> Did the PLI  have a bypass or null-key option to allow a host
> (rebooted to sanitzed state with classified files off-line) to connect
> to the normal, PLI-less ARPAnet hosts ?
>
>
> (-: We could say the PLI were the original VPN or rather Virtual Sub Nets
> :-)
>
> So sending an INTEL file from a PLI host to an MIT host just wouldn't
> work, unless the MIT host temporarily was connected via a PLI with
> matching key, which would involve shenanigans strange even by MIT or
> Community standards.
>
> Maybe NATICK LABS is involved, per article referenced in OP, because
> file was sent via PLI to them (when did they get a host?) and moved
> tapes from there to MIT?
> (As long as the orginating branch had provided waivers it might even
> have been vaguely legal to read the tape at MIT?)
> (Courier with 6 tapes in a bag on the night train still better bandwidth?)
>
> One could have sent an UNCLASS file to MIT from an UNCLASS host at Ft
> Meade (mentioned in the article), but file would have to be downgraded
> from NSA system of origin to //UNCLASS//FOUO// in order to put it onto
> the rare, air-gapped UNCLASS system that was connected to the net
> normally (no PLI).
> Doing that with actual INTEL DB would still be have been wrong, in
> addition to whether it was (im)properly gathered or not.
>
> ( Alas the Ft Meade Unclass system that I remember on the net,
> DOCKMASTER MULTICS, is documented as being a 1984 install. Also one of
> the last MULTICs to be turned off, 1998. So it was never on NCP
> ARPAnet.)
>
> What was DOCKMASTER's precursor in the NET-facing role at Ft Meade,
> and how early?
> That is relevant to (in)validating the clippings referenced in OP.
>
> > DEPENDING ON THE KEYS USES, THE PLI WAS
> > ABLE TO CARRY AT LEAST TS AND POSSIBLY SCI.
>
> Oh, interesting, I'd forgotten that.
>
> If there were Spooks doing _remote_ collaboration with social
> scientists early enough to be relevant to OP query re AGILE+CAM,
> they'd have to have been PLI customers, except for very general
> UNCLASS support/research work.
>
> (Presumably the several communities still had need for PLI's for their
> system-high subnet, once the //UNCLASS//FOUO// TCP/IP MILNET was
> separated from ARPAnet.)
>
> //bill
>



-- 
New postal address:
Google
1875 Explorer Street, 10th Floor
Reston, VA 20190
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://elists.isoc.org/pipermail/internet-history/attachments/20180413/6ef5f685/attachment.htm>