Nautilus (secure telephone)
Encyclopedia
Nautilus is a program which allows two parties to securely communicate using modems or TCP/IP. It runs from a command line and is available for the Linux
and Windows
operating systems. The name was based upon Jules Verne's Nautilus
and its ability to overcome a Clipper ship as a play on Clipper chip
.
Nautilus is historically significant in the realm of secure communication
s because it was one of the first programs which were released as open source to the general public which used strong encryption. It was created as a response to the Clipper chip
in which the US government planned to use a key escrow
scheme on all products which used the chip. This would allow them to monitor "secure" communications. Once this program and another similar program PGPfone
were available on the internet, the proverbial cat was "out of the bag" and it would have been nearly impossible to stop the use of strong encryption for telephone communications.
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
operating systems. The name was based upon Jules Verne's Nautilus
Nautilus (Verne)
The Nautilus is the fictional submarine featured in Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island . Verne named the Nautilus after Robert Fulton's real-life submarine Nautilus...
and its ability to overcome a Clipper ship as a play on Clipper chip
Clipper chip
The Clipper chip was a chipset that was developed and promoted by the U.S. National Security Agency as an encryption device to be adopted by telecommunications companies for voice transmission...
.
Nautilus is historically significant in the realm of secure communication
Secure communication
When two entities are communicating and do not want a third party to listen in, they need to communicate in a way not susceptible to eavesdropping or interception. This is known as communicating in a secure manner or secure communication...
s because it was one of the first programs which were released as open source to the general public which used strong encryption. It was created as a response to the Clipper chip
Clipper chip
The Clipper chip was a chipset that was developed and promoted by the U.S. National Security Agency as an encryption device to be adopted by telecommunications companies for voice transmission...
in which the US government planned to use a key escrow
Key escrow
Key escrow is an arrangement in which the keys needed to decrypt encrypted data are held in escrow so that, under certain circumstances, an authorized third party may gain access to those keys...
scheme on all products which used the chip. This would allow them to monitor "secure" communications. Once this program and another similar program PGPfone
PGPfone
PGPfone was a secure voice telephony system developed by Philip Zimmermann in 1995. The PGPfone protocol had little in common with Zimmermann's popular PGP email encryption package, except for the use of the name. It used ephemeral Diffie-Hellman protocol to establish a session key, which was...
were available on the internet, the proverbial cat was "out of the bag" and it would have been nearly impossible to stop the use of strong encryption for telephone communications.