HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lwloen@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Larry Loen)
Subject: Re: temporary, independent FAQ file
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 23:06:10 GMT
Reply-To: lwloen@vnet.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM Rochester

In article <1992Oct15083657patrick@sideways.welly.gen.nz>, Pat Cain
(<patrick@sideways.welly.gen.nz>) writes

>lwloen@vnet.ibm.com,
>  in article <1992Oct13.183131.16614@rchland.ibm.com> writes:
>> "temporary, independent" sci.crypt Frequently Asked Questions

>I'm also looking forward to the new FAQ.  Thanks for your version.  For
>those who missed it, here's a FAQ that was posted last year.

   <fine FAQ material deleted>

Pat, really good stuff.  Where should we go from here?  Seems like a very 
practical interim step until the really definitive one shows up.  Should
we try and merge?  I don't see a lot of overlap between them.  If I post
again, do I need permission to add your excellent book list (I would
credit all three authors, is this enough?).  I think most of my questions
would be on the front since they cover the "getting started" part, but
I like most of the topics you covered & I should have included a
bibliography, which you already have done.  Suggestions?  

Does the group in charge of the definitive FAQ have any opinions or suggestions?

If both of these were assembled and posted betimes, I think it would save a lot
of bandwidth for now.  Together, they'd come out to about 1100 lines.

-- 
   Larry W. Loen        |  My Opinions are decidedly my own, so please
                        |  do not attribute them to my employer
From: adc@tardis.msu.edu (Alan D. Cabrera)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Plebeian Cryptologist
Date: 9 Oct 92 14:35:13 GMT
Article-I.D.: msuinfo.1992Oct9.143513.19982
Reply-To: adc@tardis.msu.edu
Organization: Michigan State University


I'm interested in learning more about cryptography.  Can any one send
me references to good books, papers, bibliographies, etc. on the
topic?


---
Alan Cabrera				internet:  adc@tardis.cl.msu.edu
Computer Laboratory			phone:     (517) 353-3027
Michigan State University		fax:       (517) 353-9847
514 Computer Center			bitnet:    CABRERA@MSU
East Lansing, MI 48824
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: d89-bwe@nada.kth.se (Bjrn Wennerstrm)
Subject: Checksum algorithm wanted
Keywords: checksum MD 
Organization: Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 16:38:45 GMT

Could anyone tell me where I could find algorithms
(and possibly C implementations) of some checksum
algorithms?
From: nevries@accucx.cc.ruu.nl (Nico E de Vries)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Checksum algorithm wanted
Keywords: checksum MD
Date: 8 Oct 92 16:04:15 GMT
Organization: Academic Computer Centre Utrecht

In <1992Oct7.163845.25511@kth.se> d89-bwe@nada.kth.se (Bjrn Wennerstrm) writes:

>Could anyone tell me where I could find algorithms
>(and possibly C implementations) of some checksum

The Dr Dobbs journal may 1992 has some articles (with source) on
CRC'2 and Fletcher checksums. Especially the fletcher chechsums
are IMO reccomended. They are fast simple and good.

Nico E. de Vries
 _ _
 O O  USENET nevries@cc.ruu.nl This text reflects MY opinions, nothing else.
  o   This text is supplied 'AS IS', no waranties of any kind apply.
 \_/  Don't waste your time on complaining about my hopeless typostyle.
From: jsteiner@anwsun.phya.utoledo.edu (jason 'Think!' steiner)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Info wanted
Date: 9 Oct 92 00:07:52 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

i've recently become interested in encryption schemes but am fairly
ignorant about even the basics. can someone mail me the FAQ for this
group or point me toward some good books on the subject?

jason

--
sorry, my .signature is on strike.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: lwloen@rchland.vnet.ibm.com (Larry Loen)
Subject: Re: DES Encryption/ Encrypting more than once.
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 14:43:41 GMT
Reply-To: lwloen@vnet.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM Rochester

In article <1992Oct14.184555.26717@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca> Mark Henderson
writes:

>In article <ARI.HUTTUNEN.92Oct13203817@cardhu.cs.hut.fi> Ari.Huttunen@hut.fi
> (Ari Huttunen) writes:
>>In article <wa6JsB7w165w@works.uucp> ferret@works.uucp (Dave Ferret) writes:
>>
>>! Just a sidenote to 'Hackers' words...
>>
>>!   There are also encryption algorithms that when used to encrypt the 
>>! plaintext over and over and over, will yield the un-encrypted text. (Ie: 
>>! Its a circular encryption -- Sorry, I don't know the correct term here)
>>
>>Any encryption scheme that has a fixed block length *must* do this. Think
>>of a series of encryptions:
>>	x_1 -> x_2 -> x_3 -> ... -> x_k -> ... -> x_n -> ...
>>If 'n' is greater than the possible number of messages that can be encoded
>>in the fixed length block, there must be some blocks in the chain that
>>are the same (pigeonhole principle). Let x_k and x_n be the same blocks.
>>Then by encrypting x_k (n-k)-times yields x_k.
>>
>>(n-k) might be quite large, though. ;-)>
>
>However there is nothing in your argument to say that (k,n) are not
>dependent on the original block being encrypted.>
>
>for "circular", we want something more like:>
>
>there exists n such that
>
> n
>E (x) = x   for all blocks x  >>
>
>where E is the encryption function in question.

Few encryption systems have this property in general.  As I recall, the
system known as Bifid (see H. F. Gaines' Cryptanalysis for a brief
summary) has this property.  For a given keysquare and period, n is not
known, but is fixed for that particular set.

For other systems, this property seldom holds in general or for
specific keys.  The simplest way to show this is to do Simple Substitution
ciphers.  One can re-arrange the standard two alphabet key as
chains of substitutions.  For instance, consider (for brevity) the following
simple substitution key 

ABCDEFGHIJK...   for plaintext and
REPUBLICAND...   for ciphertext.

This has B->E->B (and hence, is B<->E), but G->I->A->R->morestuff->G.  This
sort of irregular value for n is commonplace in ciphers.

Simple substitution, in fact, does represent the general case.  Some number
of cipher and plaintext pairs will be each other's inverse, some will have
a third party inbetween, some a fourth, etc., thus taking on a wide variety
of values of n.  If one could make predictions about this, it might form
the basis of an attack.  However, except for degenerate forms of keys for
a given system (example:  REPUBLICAN... and YZREPUBLICAN... as the 
alphabets in simple substitution), I don't know of cases other than Bifid
where it might be useful and none offhand where the value of n is even uniform.

-- 
   Larry W. Loen        |  My Opinions are decidedly my own, so please
                        |  do not attribute them to my employer
From: mrr@scss3.cl.msu.edu (Mark Riordan)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: List of crypto journals
Summary: This is a list of crypto journals & magazines
Date: 11 Oct 92 17:55:47 GMT
Organization: Michigan State University
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

Here's some information on cryptology-related journals.
I gathered this in Fall 1991, so some of it may be out-of-date.

Journal of Cryptology
Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
Service Center Secaucus
44 Hartz Way
Secaucus, NJ  07094  USA
(201)348-4033

$87/year + $8 postage & handling.  Published three times a year.
Scholarly journal.  
 

Cryptosystems Journal
Tony Patti, Editor and Publisher
P. O. Box 188
Newtown, PA  18940-0188  USA
(215)579-9888    tony_s_patti@cup.portal.com

$45/year.  Published three times a year.
Journal dedicated to the implementation of cryptographic systems
on IBM PCs.  Emphasis on tutorial/pragmatic aspects.  Evidently
all articles are written by the publisher.  


CRYPTOLOGIA
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Terre Haute, IN  47803  USA

$34/year.  Published four times a year.
Blend of cryptlogical history and technique, including some modern 
techniques.  Edited by such well-known figures as David Kahn and Cipher
Devours.  This is not the place where the latest breakthroughs
are published, though.


The Cryptogram
Journal of the American Cryptogram Association
P. O. Box 6454 
Silver Spring, MD  20906

Available by joining the ACA; dues are probably about $20/year by now.
Published six times a year.  
Contains mostly puzzles for you to solve.  No techniques invented
after 1920 are used, with simple substitution being the most common.
Also contains articles on classical cryptosystems, and book reviews.
Not a scholarly journal.


The Cryptogram Computer Supplement
Dan Veeneman
P. O. Box 7
Burlington, IL  60109  USA

$2.50/issue.  Published three times a year for ACA members.
Newsletter for computer hobbyist members of the ACA.


The Public Key
George H. Foot, Editor
Waterfall, Uvedale Road
Oxted, Surry  RH8 0EW
United Kingdom

(Cost unknown.)
Magazine devoted to public key cryptography, especially amoungst
personal computer owners.  [Note that RSA's patents do not apply in
Europe, hence the existence of this magazine.]
 

Also of interest:

IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.
(Address and price not handy at the moment.)

Not a crypto journal, of course, but occasionally contains articles of
major cryptologic significance.


The Transactions of The Institute of Electronics, Information and 
Communication Engineers ( IEICE )
English edition of this Japanese journal available through:
Maruzen Co., Ltd.
P.O. Box 5050, Tokyo International
100 - 31, Japan

$10/issue or $120/year.  Published twelve times a year.  Similar to
IEEE Trans on Information Theory.  The June 90 edition is entirely
devoted to cryptography.


Aegean Park Press
P. O. Box 2837
Laguna Hills, CA  92654-0837

Publishers of books on cryptology, mostly reprints of fairly advanced
texts on classical cryptology.  (Including over 15 books by the famous
WW II cryptologists Friedman, Callimahos, and Kullback).


Mark R.   mrr@scss3.cl.msu.edu
From: ken@halcyon.com (Ken Pizzini)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: (was: Re: Public key patents in Europe?)
Date: 12 Oct 92 22:52:18 GMT
Article-I.D.: nwnexus.1992Oct12.225218.16323
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service

In article <bontchev.718919860@fbihh> bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de writes:
>From the RSA FAQ, page 4, answer to question 1.5:
>
>"The authors of patent 4,218,582 claim that it applies to all uses of
>public-key cryptography. It has been patented throughout the world."

Okay, this is the second time I've heard this, and it doesn't make
sense to me.  I thought Diffie and Hellman invented (and published)
public-key cryptography before RSA was invented?  Do I have a
misunderstanding (feel free to correct me), or is it just PKC that
is based on the difficulty of factoring that is covered by the PKP
patent?  (Or did I misidentify the patent number above?)

		--Ken Pizzini
From: kornele@a.cs.okstate.edu (KORNELE BRYAN WAYN)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Need a journals address
Date: 10 Oct 92 22:44:29 GMT
Organization: Oklahoma State University

Could someone please mail me the address and subscription information
of "The Journal of Cryptography". 

Thanks 

Bryan

kornele@a.cs.okstate.edu
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: silvia@rcf.rsmas.miami.edu
Subject: Re: mc100.zip (mcrypt)
Reply-To: silvia@rcf.rsmas.miami.edu
Organization: RSMAS
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 00:20:47 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.864.271@ALMAC>, keith.willis@almac.co.uk writes:
>
>
>        I have come across an implementation of RSA distributed by a
>        company in Wales, UK, which claims to perform RSA encryption
>        on the entire file, rather than just on a session key for a
>        conventional algorithm.  The program may be common knowledge,
>        but it is the first time I have come across it.  It is called
>        MCRYPT, and is distributed by a company called Digital
>        Crypto as shareware.
>
>        What puzzles me is that encryption is very fast - less than 2
>        minutes for a 40k text file using a 250 digit key - but
>        decryption is _glacial_ - over 3 hours for the same file on
>        the same PC.
>
>        If anyone is interested in looking at this, you may find it
>        on a BBS near you - if not drop me a note and I'll email it
>        to you.  I believe I can email it to addresses in the States,
>        but once there, it may not be exported again...
>
>
>---
> ~ PQ 2.15 194 ~ Email: keith.willis@almac.co.uk
>--
>ALMAC BBS Ltd. 0324-665371
>Dos based USENET access,  call for details!
Could you e-mail this to me please. I guess it would be uuencoded. So send
away. Thanks.



         Manolo

Xref: sparky sci.crypt:3801 alt.security:4571
From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.security
Subject: Re: Letter Frequency
Date: 15 Oct 1992 16:35:03 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge MA, USA
NNTP-Posting-Host: telecaster.think.com

In article <1992Oct15.140918.27296@emr1.emr.ca> nyelle@ccrs.emr.ca (Norman Yelle) writes:
>If you have an on-line copy of the dictionnary, then you can do the
>following:
>
>  grep -i e /usr/dict/words | wc
>
>... to find how many words contain the letter 'e'.  You can do this for all
>26 letters.  This is the results I got with a dictionary of 25144 words:

That's not a good way to determine the frequency of letters in actual text,
which is what you generally want for cryptanalysis, because it gives
equivalent weight to letters in words that are used with different
frequencies, and doesn't give extra weight to letters that appear multiple
times in a word.  Here's your list sorted by frequency:

   e   14835
   a   13190
   r   11533
   i   11428
   t   10599
   o   10285
   n   10256
   s    8700
   l    8625
   c    7204
   u    5989
   d    5324
   m    5320
   p    4929
   h    4844
   b    3862
   g    3756
   y    3523
   f    2342
   w    1907
   v    1848
   k    1848
   x     616
   j     427
   z     380
   q     377

Notice how different it is from ETAOIN SHRDLU, the beginning of the usual
letter frequency list.  That's probably mostly because of the extreme
frequency of the word "the" in text; it drags T and H several notches
higher.
-- 
Barry Margolin
System Manager, Thinking Machines Corp.

barmar@think.com          {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.security
From: agillum@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Aaron C Gillum)
Subject: Re: Letter Frequency
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 00:10:18 GMT

Wheel of fortune here I come! =)

Aaron Gillum
Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.security
From: styri@hal.nta.no (Haakon Styri)
Subject: Re: Letter Frequency
Reply-To: styri@nta.no
Organization: Norwegian Telecom Research
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 09:41:42 GMT

In article <1big1qINNrnq@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>, holland@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Rich Holland) writes:
|> I'm in dire need of a letter frequency chart for the English language.  I
|> remember as a kid reading books on basic cryptanalysis and seeing these
|> charts of the most frequently used letter (like "E" is most often used,
|> then "S" or "R" or something, etc).  I don't remember the order, but now
|> I need it.  Anyone got a copy of a table of something like this online?
|> 
|> If not, got a source where I can go look it up quick?

Have a look in Pfleeger's _Security in Computing_ (Prentice-Hall, 1989).
Table 2.1 (page 31) lists letter frequency distributions, and table 2.8
(page 52) gives frequencies of digrams English.

---
Haakon Styri
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: jgarland@kean.ucs.mun.ca
Subject: Re: Using genetic engineering for exhaustive DES key search
Organization: Memorial University. St.John's Nfld, Canada
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 11:12:05 GMT

In article <gH2JsB7w165w@works.uucp>, hacker@works.uucp (DamDum) writes:
> lou@Cadence.COM (Louis K. Scheffer) writes:
> 
>> 
>> While pondering the well known problem of DES cracking via exhaustive
>> key search, I started wondering if you could apply genetic engineering to
>> the problem.  It seems like it may be possible.
>> 
>> The basic approach would be to build a bacteria that acts as a DES key search
>> machine.  Each bacteria generates keys at random, decrypts the encrypted bloc
>> with the key, and compares the result with the plaintext.  If there is a matc
>> it generates lots of a string of DNA that contains the key and a specific
>> marker that binds to an antibody, and excretes the result.  Otherwise it
>> just keeps trying keys.
>> 


Isn't one feature of genetic algorithms that they operate on a problem 
space that isn't flat.  That is, I fail to see how there can be any 
'goodness' test here except success or failure of a key to decode 
ciphertext into sensible output.  This would seem to reduce the 
idea to a variant of exhaustive search.  [This assumes that keys close to 
the correct key do not provide any information to the attacker as to their 
closeness (which is true of DES isn't it?).]

John Garland
jgarland@kean.ucs.mun.ca
From: extjpw@kk28.ericsson.se (Jean Pierre Weber TT/FORC)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Quantum cryptography: a flawed premise?
Date: 14 Oct 92 07:10:31 GMT
Organization: Ericsson

leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu writes:

>In article <1992Oct13.061724.25758@netcom.com>, rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain)
>writes:
>> leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu writes:
>| : 
>| : The attack against the *cryptosystem*, as opposed to the attack against QM,
>| : goes like this:  The eavesdropper clones the photons and SAVES them - he
>| 
>| How does he do this?  I know of no way to "save" a photon.  Somehow mirrors
>| would be involved and I think interaction with a mirror would alter the
>| polarization state.
>| 
>...
>You should be able to transmit these photons through a fiber (which
>contains them by total internal reflection) without losing the important
>information.  The fiber can be wrapped into a ring; you need an optical
>switch to get it into the ring at the start, and out at the end, but
>such things exist.

>Admitedly, keeping a photon going around a ring of fiber for, say, an
>hour is pretty unlikely.  But remember that you can keep amplifying the
>signal while retaining its information by using a laser - that was the whole
>basis by which we cloned the original photon!  In effect, you are coupling
>the original information to a laser pulse that you can keep feeding energy
>into to make up for the energy it loses.  I see no fundamental reason why
>you can't keep the information stable as long as you like this way.
           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is not really true because a laser amplifier will always add
noise due to spontaneous emission. After some time, your signal to
noise ratio will start to degrade and at some point, you will lose
the signal totally.
From what I have seen with long distance fiber optic systems, you can
probably not do it over more than about 10000 or 20000 km of fiber,
which corresponds to a delay of about 0.1 seconds.

   J.-P. Weber
From: unijbm@uts.uni-c.dk (J|rgen B. Madsen)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Just what is the DES crypt()
Date: 8 Oct 92 11:43:12 GMT
Organization: UNI-C, Danish Computing Centre for Research and Education

In <9210080452.AA12560@deepthought.cs.utexas.edu> STDN%MARIST@VM.MARIST.EDU (Dan Newcombe) writes:

>Well , the subject really says it...

>  what is this DES crypt function, and why is it so important?

>Sorry for being ignorant.
>  -Dan

I have a description from Michael Glad in Denmark:


To represent binary values at encrypted password and the encryption salts,
the UNIX crypt algorithm uses at 6 bit character set, i.e. a mapping of the
integers 0..63 to ASCII characters. The mapping is

	./0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Salt values have to be in this set. The salt characters are converted one at a
time giving two 6 bit values. They are combined to a 12 bit entity where the
6 bit representing the first salt character gets shifted by 6. The 12 bit value
is then used to swap entries in the E selection table. The entries with
index 0..11 are permuted with the entries with index 12..33 according to bits
set in the salt value. The entries in the table specify a selection, the table
has 48 entries with values in the range 1..32 meaning that a 32 bit value is
expanded to 48 bit.

The 6 bit representation is also used to pack the output of the 25 DES round.
DES output is 64 bits. Two implicit zero bits are then added giving 66 bits.
These bits are then converted to ASCII 6 bits a time giving 11 characters.
Being prefixed with the two salt characters, we get 13 chars alltogether.

The password is used to give the DES key using 7 bits per character. Passwords
shorter than 8 bytes are padded with zero bytes.

The salting (and the conventions for representing output) are the only changes
made to DES. 

Fast implementations are available. Just to mention one random chosen :-),
UFC-crypt is a package which fits nicely into Crack (it is mentioned in the Crack
docs. It is availble for anon. ftp from many sites, also from 'ftp.daimi.aau.dk'
in 'pub/ufc-crypt.pl1e.tar.Z'. It may appear a little hard to understand unless
you've studied the DES standard closely.

The password encryption is the same in virtually all UNIX versions.
The 'Berkeley Crypt' supports 24 bits salts (simple extension) but this is not
in common use. Digital has a 'Enhanced security option' which used a 'crypt16'
function. UFC implements it too. It was recently made to mincemeat in a discussion
in alt.security.

I hope I've clarified things a little. You're welcome to contact me if you have
further questions.

Sincerely,

	-- Michael Glad, email: glad@daimi.aau.dk



Regards,
Jorgen Bo Madsen

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
!   Jorgen Bo Madsen,  Security Consultant				!
!   UNI-C Lyngby,  Danish Computing Centre for Research and Education	!
!   DTH,  Building 305,  DK - 2800 Lyngby				!
!   Phone  : +45-45-938355						!
!   Telefax: +45-45-930220						!
!   E-Mail : Jorgen.Bo.Madsen@uni-c.dk					!
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: gideony@microsoft.com (Gideon Yuval)
Subject: non-US S/W
Date: 09 Oct 92 18:44:20 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

What good encryption software is commercially available outside
the U.S. & Canada? I am particularly interested in strong
bulk-encryption.

Thanks
-- 
Gideon Yuval, gideony@microsoft.com, 206-882-8080 (fax:-883-8101;TWX:160520)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: bosman@fwi.uva.nl (Cor Bosman)
Subject: Re: PGP... Availaible
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 16:31:47 GMT

rbrand@usasoc.soc.mil (Raymond S. Brand) writes:

>In article <1992Oct14.204738.18237@fwi.uva.nl>, bosman@fwi.uva.nl (Cor Bosman) writes:
> 
>> There is an amiga binary already available. You can get it on
>> amiga.physik.unizh.ch  /amiga/util/crypt/PGP20amiga.lha
>> I suggest you use this one, cause the original pgp package
>> misses some vital amiga files (mostly assembler) 
>> I did include them with this binary and they will be added to
>> the next pgp release.
>> If anyone makes any patches for amiga, id also like to have them,
>> so we can also put them into the released versions.

>> Cor Bosman
>> -- 
>Would you please make your changes and patches available.

They will be in the next pgp update distribution, which will
be brought out soon as I understand. 

Cor Bosman


>							rsbx

>Raymond S. Brand
-- 
|bosman@fwi.uva.nl_   //     | Honest Officer , had I known my health      |
|-----------------\\ //AMIGA | stood in jeopardy I would never had lit one.|
|  PE no.1         \\/       |             -MAXIM (of the Hells Angels)-   |
|__________ Quickly Scotty,beam me up.There is no ox..y..ge..._____________|