HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Quantum cryptography: a flawed premise?
Date: 12 Oct 92 22:40:51 GMT
Organization: Rutgers University Department of Computer Science

In article <TK.92Oct12131052@entropy.ai.mit.edu>, tk@ai.mit.edu (Tom Knight)
writes:
| You would think that a single photon could be amplified, for example
| in a laser-like structure to produce additional copies.  Measuring one
| of the copies in one polarization, and another in the orthogonal
| polarization, would give the complete answer to the question of the
| state of the original particle, destroying the cryptanalytic basis of
| quantum cryptography.  Unfortunately (or fortunately if you are a
| cryptographer), there is intrinsic noise associated with the
| amplification process, in just the amount required to prevent this
| process from succeeding.  If you want to look at the details of the
| quantum mechanics, look at e.g. "Quantum noise in linear amplifiers"
| H.A. Haus and J.A. Muller, Phys. Rev. Vol 128 pp 2407-2413 (1962).  It
| is perhaps most easily accesible in the excellent collection "Quantum
| Theory and Measurement" edited by Wheeler and Zurek, Princeton U.
| Press, 1983.

Hold on a moment!  This and other comments have tried to do too much.
Remember, the original point was not to try to find a hole in QM, it was to
read the apparently secret messages that Alice sent Bob.  The basis of the
secrecy was that an eavesdropper could not measure the state of a photon
before passing it onto Bob without Alice and Bob knowing about it.  But
in fact the assumption needed was stronger:  That the eavesdropper couldn't
even *duplicate* the photon's state without Alice and Bob knowing.  THAT
assumption apparently isn't true.

The attack against the *cryptosystem*, as opposed to the attack against QM,
goes like this:  The eavesdropper clones the photons and SAVES them - he
makes no attempt to measure their polarization states yet.  Later, when Alice
has revealed to Bob (and the eavesdropper) which "regime" (circular or linear)
each photon polarization is to be measured in, the eavesdropper can safely go
back and measure just that state.  QM guarantees that he gets the same answers
Bob did, when Bob measured those same photons in Alice's "regime".  (On the
ones where Bob chose the wrong "regime", both the eavesdropper and Bob get
random answers.)  When Bob now tells Alice which photons he read in the
"right" regime, the eavesdropper learns which of his measurements to keep,
too.

Now, it's true that if Alice waits a while before revealing which measure-
ments to make, the eavesdropper will have trouble storing his photons.  But
that hardly seems fundamental; it's a question of technology.  Further, it's
essentially the same technology that Alice and Bob are relying on to transfer
the photons safely between them; so you'd have to be very careful here.

							-- Jerry
From: mzraly@ra.cs.umb.edu (Cheesy Vitriol)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Need a journals address (Me too, please)
Date: 11 Oct 92 04:51:35 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Boston

kornele@a.cs.okstate.edu (KORNELE BRYAN WAYN) writes:
>Could someone please mail me the address and subscription information
>of "The Journal of Cryptography". 

I hate me-too postings, but...

Would same someone please email me the same info?

	Many thanks,
	    Mike

-- 
Mike Zraly		Dawn, n.: The time when men of reason
mzraly@cs.umb.edu	go to bed.  -- Ambrose Bierce
From: mjr@hussar.dco.dec.com (Marcus J. "Buddy can you spare a clue?" Ranum)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: query: how to synch crypto streams
Date: 15 Oct 92 16:23:27 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation, Washington ULTRIX Resource Center


	I'm just wondering. What kinds of techniques are usually used for
synching two crypto streams? Suppose I have a pair of boxes that each can
talk DES. There is a wire between them. I want to pass data back and
forth encrypted. What kinds of tricks might I use to get them both talking
together (and able to understand eachother) ;) without having to pass some
kind of a key over the wire that an enemy could use?

	This seems to me to be a pretty hard problem to solve, but if I'm
not mistaken there are boxes out there that do exactly this. Or do they
just assume that the bag guys didn't manage to tap the first few packets
that go back and forth? Do they somehow save state between calls?

mjr.
-- 
	It is important to focus on writing software that is "adequate."
Having one's software be "good" or even "excellent" is over-rated. If
"good" were necessary or even important, DOS would not be the de facto
standard operating system.                          -notebooks of a heretic
From: grady@public.BTR.COM ( )
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: PGP... Availaible
Date: 15 Oct 92 03:37:25 GMT
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. For info contact: info@BTR.COM

Thanks to several individuals on the net 
for responding to my request for PGP2.0.         
 
As a way of saying "thanks," I will send
a copy of this MS-DOS 3.5" DD disk to                                 
you with the complete source and object                                     
in return for:                                                          
 
(1) A SASE with two ounces postage or two IRC's;        
and a blank 3.5" DD disk, OR
                                 
(2) a donation of US$3 -- $5 if you also want
a disk containing sources to DES, Lucifer, SHA,
and other algorithms.                              

Right now I cannot ship outside North America, but
I will be able to when I finish my "code-to-documentation"
algorithm that dithers source code into documentation
whose expression is protected under the first
admendment of the U.S. Constitution.

You may want to take advantage of this mode of
distribution if it is difficult or inconvenient to
download, FTP, or be e-mail served this material,
or if you want a "second copy" to serve as a
cross-check on your primary distribution method.

Grady Ward
P.O. Box 52137
Pacific Grove, CA  93950

grady@btr.com  (408) 373-1491

-- 
Grady Ward  grady@btr.com  Moby Lexicons (408) 373-1491
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: pshuang@athena.mit.edu (Ping Huang)
Subject: Archival site for sci.crypt
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Distribution: sci
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 05:34:38 GMT

I am wondering if there is an archival site for this group. If anyone is
maintaining one and wouldn't mind permitting public consumption, please
speak up. Also, I think including that information in the FAQ being
worked on would be very useful.

[I've already looked in news.answers, comp.archives, checked via archie
and a WAIS server I found through archie for this information.]

--
Ping Huang (INTERNET: pshuang@athena.mit.edu), probably speaking for himself

Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain)
Subject: Re: Public key patents in Europe?
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 06:31:15 GMT

bontchev@fbihh.informatik.uni-hamburg.de (Vesselin Bontchev) writes:
: 
: The claims in patent 4,218,582 cover any use of public key
: cryptosystems - regardless of the method used. Seems that the whole
: idea is patented. (Please do not start a flame war about how stupid a
: patent law that permits an algorithm to be patented is.)

This is claim 1 and would be damned hard to uphold since they already
had patented a way of doing this in 4,200,770 without the sweeping
claim.

Bob
-- 
Bob Cain    rcain@netcom.com   408-358-2007

"There are some strings.  They're just not attached."
                                                    Victoria Roberts


               PGP 1.0 or 2.0 public key available on request.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.security
From: craig@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson)
Subject: Re: Letter Frequency
Reply-To: craig@jido.b30.ingr.com
Organization: Intergraph Corporation, Huntsville, Alabama
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 17:55:33 GMT

   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?

The frequency distribution that you get varies somewhat depending on
your source of text. Here is the table from Appendix C of Sinkov:

(#'s per 1000 letters)

E 130 T 93 N 78 R 77 I 74 O 74 A 73 S 63 D 44 H 35 L 35 C 30 F 28

P 27 U 27 M 25 Y 19 G 16 W 16 V 13 B 9 X 5 K 3 Q 3 J 2 Z 1


You get something a bit different if you just run a frequency test
on the dictionary (maybe I have an odd dictionary, too):

$ freq < /usr/dict/words | sort +1 -nr | pg
E 36119
A 30747
I 26179
R 23702
O 22767
T 22545
N 22412
S 22094
L 17688
C 17458
D 13054
U 10767
M 9780
B 9231
P 8539
H 7922
G 7817
Y 5766
F 3946
V 3285
K 3046
W 2603
Z 1041
X 862
Q 627
J 626


-- Craig
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: rcain@netcom.com (Robert Cain)
Subject: Re: (was: Re: Public key patents in Europe?)
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest) 
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 06:46:11 GMT

ken@halcyon.com (Ken Pizzini) writes:
: 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

This is the Diffie-Merkle patent.  It is owned by PKP as well as the
first Hellman-Diffie-Merkle patent 4,200,770.  These did in fact precede
RSA but since PKP owns them anyway, it doesn't matter.  I believe though
that it does matter that the second patent claims something invented
in the first but not specifically claimed, the entire concept of public
key.  There is opinion that the claims in the second patent would not
stand anyway because the knapsack method described as an embodyment is
not in fact secure and as such isn't a valid method of cryptography.

That's what sucks about this patent system, it doesn't matter really
whether the patent is valid, what matters is whether one has the money
to prove it isn't.  I'm not sure what the answer to that problem is 
either.  Consortium anyone?

Bob
-- 
Bob Cain    rcain@netcom.com   408-358-2007

"There are some strings.  They're just not attached."
                                                    Victoria Roberts


               PGP 1.0 or 2.0 public key available on request.
From: unruh@unixg.ubc.ca (Bill Unruh)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: DES Encryption/ Encrypting more than once.
Date: 15 Oct 92 17:23:49 GMT
Organization: The University of British Columbia
NNTP-Posting-Host: unixg.ubc.ca



keith@bnr.ca (Keith W. Campbell) writes:


>It is only a problem if the cycle length is very short.  A cycle length of
>one means that the plaintext and ciphertext are the same.  If the cycle
>length is two, an attacker who can arrange to have a chosen text encrypted
>may discover the plaintext by having the ciphertext re-encrypted.

>For DES these short cycles are very rare and such keys are easy to avoid.
>DES and other good ciphers which may be considered to be random mappings
>have average cycle lengths of sqrt(pi*n/8) steps where n is the number of
>possible plaintexts.

>For DES, n=2^64 so the average cycle length is about 0.627*2^32.
>So in practice, the cycles of an
>encryption algorithm are not problematic.

So a chosen plaintext attack of "only " 2^32 should crack DES, rather
than the 2^47 or something of the differential analysis attack? Sounds
like a significant advance in the breaking of DES since the former has
been widely reported as breaking DES:)?

Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: bosman@fwi.uva.nl (Cor Bosman)
Subject: Re: PGP... Availaible
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 20:47:38 GMT

locatech@tron.gun.de (Joerg Loehn) writes:

>BX017%CLEVELAND.FREENET.EDU@USENET.ZER schreibt in einer Message vom 04.10.92 17:05 Uhr:

>> Hello
>> 
>> Where i Can see  a PGP... Program for Amiga computer...?
>> 
>> 
>> Please... answer me... 
>> 
>> bye
>>                               
>>                                               Michel Aubin

>Hi Michel...

>I've got an Atari STE and had the same question,  but now I  have 
>PGP 2.0 as source. If you have a C-Compiler and you are familliar 
>with the C-Language you could compile it on your Amiga.

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.


>By  the way.  Is anyone out there who can help me?  I've got  the 
>Problem than I'm NOT familliar with the C-Language and so I'm not 
>able to compile PGP.

Lemme know what you need. Im not really into atari or anything, but
there shouldnt be too much changes between amiga<->atari.
Most of the 68000 routines I have probably work on atari
with little change.

Cor Bosman
-- 
|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..._____________|
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: frechett@spot.Colorado.EDU (-=Runaway Daemon=-)
Subject: Re: pgp 2.0
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 07:35:12 GMT

In article <8084@public.BTR.COM> grady@public.BTR.COM ( ) writes:
>The mail server source of pgp2.0 was corrupt;

Doubtful.  From what I've heard over and over and over again, you need
unzip1.10 (forgive me.. I'm not a PC person.. might be pkunzip1.10) to
unpack pgp20.zip

BTW, regarding your offer for someone to send you a copy of pgp2.0 for money.. 
This might be grounds for prosecution under copyright infringment laws in the 
USA.  At least that's how Phil's dicussion of PKP and their bass ackwards way 
of going about life.  I'd suggest upgrading your unzipper first and see
if that helps before you try getting someone wrapped up in a legal battle.

Along these lines I'd like to know if anyone else has any information regarding
PKP and if they plan to do anything about RSA licensing.  It seems to me that
they are just about to lose any control over RSA if pgp were to become
widespread (god forbid).  I think they'd do better if they came out with some
sort of reasonable licensing agreement.


	ian   (finger frechett@spot.colorado.edu for key)

hmmm.. I should add an automatic reply to my mail handler to send out my key..
hmmmmm...
From: srt@duke.cs.duke.edu (Stephen R. Tate)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: DES Encryption/ Encrypting more than once.
Date: 15 Oct 92 19:04:17 GMT
Organization: Duke University Computer Science Dept.; Durham, N.C.

In article <1992Oct15.012933.20350@ringer.cs.utsa.edu> cbarkley@alex (The DarkMage) writes:
>Can anyone send me the PRECISE algorithm used to build a UNIX
>password for the password file?  Source code for it would be
>even nicer.

Geez... can't anyone read a man page any more?  The following program
was trivial to throw together.  It should compile on any UNIX system ---
you don't need to have the source code for the encryption algorithm,
since it is part of the standard C library (on UNIX systems, anyway).

There is a very weak attempt at producing "random looking" salts for
the passwords.  Due to this, even if you run the program twice on the
same password, it should give you two different encrypted versions (this
is fine).  

Use of the program is very simple.  If you compile the program to
an executable named "encpasswd", then "encpasswd foo" gives you an
encrypted form for password "foo".

You may send my consulting fee to the address below. :-)

					Steve Tate

===========================================================================

#include <stdio.h>

char *crypt();

char saltchars[] = 
       "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789./";

int main(argc, argv)
int argc;
char *argv[];
{
    char salt[3];
    int saltint;

    if (argc < 2) {
	fprintf(stderr, "Usage: %s <password>\n", argv[0]);
        exit(1);
    }

    saltint = getpid() % 4099;
    saltint = (saltint * 2040) % 4099;
    salt[0] = saltchars[ saltint&0x3f ];
    salt[1] = saltchars[ (saltint>>6)&0x3f ];
    salt[2] = '\0';

    puts(crypt(argv[1], salt));

    return(0);
}

========================================================================

-- 
Steve Tate srt@cs.duke.edu | The reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem,
Dept. of Computer Science  | above all other sciences, is that its laws are
Duke University     | absolutely certain and indisputable, while those of all
Durham, NC  27706   | other sciences are to some extent debatable. (Einstein)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: amwalker@nyx.cs.du.edu (Art Walker)
Subject: Re: PGP... Availaible
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 04:16:32 GMT

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.

I noticed one small problem with the Amiga PGP binary.  On my unaccelerated
A2000, it's very easy to outrun the keyboard-timing routines when the program
asks for "random input".  

I haven't taken a close look at the source code for keyboard timing, but
when I did an experimental port of PGP for the DICE compiler under 1.3, I
also had the same problem.

- Art
--
- Art Walker (amwalker@nyx.cs.du.edu)
	"It started to hit me like a umm, ah, two-ton heavy thing."
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: ted@nmsu.edu (Ted Dunning)
Subject: Re: Steganography and SECURITY
Reply-To: ted@nmsu.edu
Organization: Computing Research Lab
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 20:40:53 GMT


In article <1992Oct6.211135.2563@unislc.uucp> erc@unislc.uucp (Ed Carp) writes:

   Ross Anderson (rja14@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:

   : I believe I did mention in my original posting that the spooks did this 
   : during the war. If they saw a telegram saying `father is deceased' they'd 
   : change it to `father is dead'; if they got lucky, a dumb spy would query, 
   : `is father dead or deceased?' (This is all in Kahn's book.)

   Ton Clancy wrote about this in one of his books.  The CIA used it
   to discover who had leaked what to the press by generating slightly
   different memos and distributing them.  Each memo was slightly
   different, and no two were alike.  They were written in such a way
   that they all said the same, yet a quote taken from one would
   immediately identify which copy was leaked.

the british government has taken to doing essentially this.  different
cabinet members are given copies of documents with different spacing
patterns.  if they leak a xerox to the press, then it is very clear
whose copy it is.

the countermeasure is to scan and reprint anything you want to leak.
From: tk@ai.mit.edu (Tom Knight)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: Quantum cryptography: a flawed premise?
Date: 14 Oct 92 19:04:37 GMT
	<1992Oct12.184051.1@zodiac.rutgers.edu>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: leichter@zodiac.rutgers.edu's message of 12 Oct 92 22:40:51 GMT

Once more with feeling... You Can't Clone Quantum States.  If you
could, then you could copy a particle, measure its wave function in
one axis, the other particle in the other axis, and violate the
uncertainty principle.  You can't.

Lasers and laser-like amplifiers DO maintain polarization for incoming
beams with large numbers of photons.  They do not for incoming single
photons.  All of the photons coming out of the amplifier will be in
the same state (nearly), but this state is NOT RELIABLY IDENTICAL to the
incoming (single) photon state.
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
From: jgarland@kean.ucs.mun.ca
Subject: Re: Using genetic engineering for exhaustive DES key search (oops)
Organization: Memorial University. St.John's Nfld, Canada
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 14:20:32 GMT

In article <1992Oct13.084205.1@kean.ucs.mun.ca>, jgarland@kean.ucs.mun.ca writes:
> 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

Excuse me...but I left out 1 thing I meant to say above...I meant to say:

This would seem to reduce the idea to an _extremely slow_ variant of 
exhaustive search.  

[Expanding]  I mean, why not just search the entire space directly 
when there is no reason/way to narrow the search heuristically in some way?
Also to search an entire keyspace when sampling _with_ replacement--which 
is the case in at least the one implementation of genetic algorithms that I've 
seen--would be inordinately time-consuming.  (Of course it might be possible
to cast the problem in such a way that algorithmic variants cannot return 
to previously tried values, but I do not see how to do this without keeping 
some sort of list of unworkable keys.  This list would get very lengthy 
very quickly).


John Garland
jgarland@kean.ucs.mun.ca
Xref: sparky sci.crypt:3817 comp.os.os2.apps:7215