Re: $100,000 reward

Mordechai Ovits (movits@syndata.com)
Fri, 19 Jun 1998 15:41:22 -0400

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We had some amazing laughs at our office as we read the description of the
algorithms.
Some gems:

"The ORIGINAL DATA are never encrypted or transferred in any form or shape.
Since the data is not encrypted, there is no way to decrypt it."
- Uh, no comment.

"At that stage, 5 different keys are being created: "Million Bit Key" (MBK)
is a key of 1 Million Bits in size that is unique in concept. Since a
million bits equal 128kb, it would be way slow to transfer over slow
communication lines (2 minutes at 28.8k), therefore, it is recreated at
both sides (based on a secret reference file) of the connection WITHOUT
being transferred."
- Someone ought to clue them in to the basics of entropy and information
theory. And on the practical side, if you are able to share a secret
reference file, why not use a OTP and get REAL security (Ha Ha Only
Serious).

"Bit Level Encryption" (BLE) is another innovative algorithm that encrypts
data one bit at a time. A specific bit can have a value of only 0 or 1, and
the encrypted value is also only either 0 or 1. Considering the fact that a
single bit is meaningless (versus a byte that can signify a character for
example) it is impossible to decrypt."
- Stream ciphers anyone? Someone should have told Ron Rivest :-)

"Having multiple algorithms combined and interleaved throughout the program
ensures that even the best cryptographer cannot reverse engineer the
program, and will not even have a starting point."
- Is it just me, or does one of the fundamentals of cryptography state that
the entire security of a cryptosystem must depend on the secrecy of the key
and not the secrecy of the algorithm?

The let's-finish-it-with-style award goes to....
"After these explanations, we hope that you'll agree with our
non-compromising statement of: . . . "VME IS UNBREAKABLE CRYPTO-SYSTEM""
(sic)
- Claude Shannon just rolled over in his grave.

I really enjoyed reading their stuff.
----
o Mordy Ovits
o Programmer / Cryptographer
o SynData Technologies Inc.
o Download A Free Copy Of Our Software At:
o http://www.syncrypt.com

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