Other Directory Sites: SeekWonder | Directory Owners Forum
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:18:52 ADT
Bruce Schneier (schneier@counterpane.com)
Mon, 22 Jun 1998 23:05:55 -0400
I agree with both of you. Of course it makes no sense to play by the
rules of these silly challenges. When I suggested breaking this
particular product, it never occurred to me that we would be playing by
the rules or that we would even collect any reward. I'm just a little
bored, and I thought some easy cryptanalysis targets would be fun.
Fundamentally, it is impossible to stay ahead of these people. They
can invent dumb ciphers faster than anyone can break them. They can
make trivial modifications in dumb ciphers faster than anyone can break
them.
I think it is worthwhile to break some of the pseudo-scientific crypto
nonsense that companies are spouting: virtual matrix encryption,
RPK, pseudo-one time pads, 16Kbit keys, chaos-theory encryption.
I've heard about all this stuff during the past few weeks, and I think
it's about time to break some of this stuff.
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.
Bruce
**********************************************************************
Bruce Schneier, President, Counterpane Systems Phone: 612-823-1098
101 E Minnehaha Parkway, Minneapolis, MN 55419 Fax: 612-823-1590
http://www.counterpane.com
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Fri Aug 21 1998 - 17:18:52 ADT