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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:18:52 ADT
mgraffam@mhv.net
Tue, 23 Jun 1998 01:18:24 -0400
On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Bruce Schneier wrote:
> I think there is good science to be done here. Not all of this will be
> immediately obvious how to break. Some it will actually be interesting.
> Some of it will be publishable. And if we are ever going to teach
> people how to do cryptanalysis, it makes sense to go after the low-
> hanging fuit first.
With this you've nailed it.
There is plenty of literature available for breaking classical ciphers,
and a dedicated beginner can fill his time nicely breaking transposition
ciphers, aristocrats, polyalphabetic ciphers, and then move on to the
analysis of rotor machines. While few people would actually go ahead and
break a rotor (are there actually any true rotor machine simulators
available?), they might dig around in the literature and learn the
concepts, and maybe apply them to single rotor variants.. which is good.
Making the jump analysis of such older methods to modern cryptanalysis can
be a huge one, and I personally think that building a bridge across the
gap with the charred, broken remains of VME and other garbage may
just give the beginning cryptanalyst the tools to work with.
Michael J. Graffam (mgraffam@mhv.net)
http://www.mhv.net/~mgraffam -- Philosophy, Religion, Computers, Crypto, etc
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity.
Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the
guidance of another. . .Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own
understanding!" - Immanuel Kant "What is Enlightenment?"
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:18:52 ADT