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The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Sat Apr 10 1999 - 01:18:02
SDN (sdn@divcom.slimy.com)
Wed, 13 Jan 1999 00:56:30 -0800
On Wed, Jan 13, 1999 at 08:12:31AM +0100, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
> David R. Conrad wrote:
> > On Tue, 12 Jan 1999, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
> > > Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> > > > I agree with Jim. You are, at the very least, making yourself look foolish.
> > >
> > > I expect from a scientific discussion something more than such
> > > categorical statements without supporting arguments.
>
> > They've already told you why they feel that way. The term "Pseudo-OTP" is
> > confusing, misleading, inextricably tied to snake oil, and is a neologism
> > where a perfectly acceptable term, Stream Cipher, already exists.
> >
> > Maybe you don't agree with that. But they have certainly made their case
> > clear. And, for whatever it's worth, I agree with them. If I was to
> > start designing stream ciphers, which is something I'm not qualified to
> > do, I would call them stream ciphers.
>
> In a response to a post of this list, I suggested an alternative
> term 'XYZ stream encryption sequence'. In sci.crypt, where one person
> vehemently objected to my terminology, I suggested an alternative
> term 'intended approximation to an ideal OTP'. In both cases I
> haven't yet obtained feedback. What's your opinion to these?
> Or do you have a better suggestion?
The fact that the experts use a given terminology is probably enough reason
to use it all by itself.
In this particular case, there are (at least) two additonal reasons to avoid
using the term "OTP" in discussing stream cyphers:
1) Con artists selling junk cryptosystems frequently do that. You don't want
to sound like them.
2) The interesting property of a one-time-pad system is that the number of
bits of key is as large as the number of bits of plaintext. Comparing
any system that doesn't use a longer key for bigger plaintexts with a
one time pad isn't particularly useful.
I find that stream cypher (as in stream of bits to xor with) is a fairly
intuitive description. Your milage obviously varies, but I suggest you use
the standard terminology anyway.
> BTW, what interests me personally more is the question: Would the use
> of an alternative term lead to substantial motivations of the readers
> to contribute discussions on the topic? I guess that this issue is
> probably at least as essential as the aforementioned.
I'm pretty sure you'd lose more people than you gained, and you'd definitely
lose the people you actually want comments from.
Jon Leonard
The following archive was created by hippie-mail 7.98617-22 on Sat Apr 10 1999 - 01:18:02