Watch the latest videos on YouTube.com

| Cryptome DVDs are offered by Cryptome. Donate $25 for two DVDs of the Cryptome 12-and-a-half-years collection of 47,000 files from June 1996 to January 2009 (~6.9 GB). Click Paypal or mail check/MO made out to John Young, 251 West 89th Street, New York, NY 10024. The collection includes all files of cryptome.org, cryptome.info, jya.com, cartome.org, eyeball-series.org and iraq-kill-maim.org, and 23,100 (updated) pages of counter-intelligence dossiers declassified by the US Army Information and Security Command, dating from 1945 to 1985.The DVDs will be sent anywhere worldwide without extra cost.

Web | cryptome.org | cryptome.info | jya.com | eyeball-series.org | cryptome.cn

14 July 1998
Source: Fax from Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. Thanks to Lt. Col. Byars. Fax transmittal sheet omitted (p. 01).

See related news report: http://jya.com/sat-device.htm

This is an NSA-brief on the Chinese satellite crypto device. It was prepared for July 8 testimony by DoD's Franklin Miller before the Senate Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Affairs. Miller's testimony was cancelled but DoD has provided the one-page brief upon request.

    JUL-14-1998 12:51       DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PA        703 697 3501 p.02

>                                                         JUL 8 1998

> Question: What happened to the encryption device that was aboard the
> failed INTELSAT launch in 1996?

> Answer: The U.S. personnel present searched the site for two days after the
> launch failure. Despite extremely hazardous conditions that made recovery
> very difficult, the U.S. personnel believed that they recovered all recoverable
> U.S. parts and components that survived the launch failure.

> No identifiable parts or components associated with the Telemetry Tracking
> and Control Encryption devices [TT&C], and the circuit board on which it
> was mounted, were recovered. We have been advised by Loral that the
> devices were embedded on a tray mounted within the Command Processor
> Box of the satellite. lf this is the case, it is highly unlikely that the devices
> survived the crash because of the crash impact and high temperatures
> produced by the burning rocket propellants. According to Loral, the
> Command Processor Box was located adjacent to the propellant tanks and
> U.S. personnel at the site recovered only 30% of the box.

> The COMSEC circuit board consisted of a printed wiring board and forty
> plus, off-the-shelf and semi-custom discrete small scale integrated circuit
> chips. The COMSEC board is somewhat large and relatively fragile (about
> 6x10 inches), with interconnecting "tracks" on the board which interconnect
> the many logic devices into the COMSEC algorithm. As such a whole
> circuit board, its whole composite set of pieces, and the whole set of logic
> chips need to be recovered to succeed in reengineering the design of the
> device. If Loral's assessment of the physical implementation of the two
> COMSEC devices aboard INTELSAT 708 and the extent of damage to the
> command processor from the crash, impact and fire are correct, NSA and
> DTSA believe that it is highly unlikely that these items could have been
> recovered in sufficient detail to reverse engineer.

> In the unlikely event that the Chinese were able to recover all the items fully
> intact, it is important to note that the encryption board involved many
> embedded devices. Any loss of the chips and associated encryption
> algorithm would have have only minimal impact on national security because
> the INTELSAT 708 satellite was uniquely keyed.

[End fax]