Talk:Cryptography/Archive 2

message: I am working on a cryptographic article that covers something I think is missing both on Wikipedia and in most crypto books. An article that briefly explains which steps one does in which order when encrypting a message. That is, make/exchange IVs, perhaps compress the message, MAC the message, encrypt the message etc. Since I have not come up with a good name for the article yet and it only is a very rough draft I have put it under my user page for now: User:Davidgothberg/Crypto_steps  I would love to get some help to brush it up to an acceptable level and to figure out a good name for it. --David Göthberg 15:36, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That should go in Wikibooks, not Wikipedia. Phr 22:08, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Crypto steps / layers 

message: I have found that for quick'n'dirty encryption that your kid sister won't be able to decrypt, the good old xor is more than enough. I think individuals need not use heavy metal encryption too much that big brother cannot decrypt easily because then he may single you out for questioning, getting suspicious about you quite unnecessarily. Xor works just fine for me and keeps my kid sister away from those special pics of my romantic escapades ! 193.251.135.124 22:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: let's hope your kid sister doesn't read Wikipedia :-) - the fixed headers in JPEGs means that XOR can be broken without even having to guess the key! --Alvestrand 07:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Wikipedia is screwed with one-time pad then ;-) — Matt Crypto 21:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Matt, I agree and think the remaining question is whether we turn oursleves in to the FBI before they notice the offense or only after. Should we warn Wales and the Metawiki board? Give 'em a chance to run for it? What about the Foundation? And who goes to jail (gaol for you)? Will you petition Her Majesty's Government for a waiver of extradtion for you, so you can see the USA from a jail cell maximally promptly? Or do you think you'd prefer to force the Justice and State Departments to bother HMG with formal requests to waive extradition hearings in your case? Prosecuting minds want to know, so please don't be dilatory. Mayhap we'll finally meet in adjoining cells in Gitmo? What do you think? ww 23:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Good old Xor

message: With due respect to the contributions of Logologist, I'd like to remove the description of "cryptology" as formerly meaning what we now call cryptanalysis, and also the description of "cryptanalysis" as a neologism.  The OED2 gives cites of "cryptology" with something like today's meaning, back to the 17th century or maybe earlier (I don't have it in front of me right now).  "Cryptanalysis" was coined in the 1930's, which is ancient history now.  If we really have a problem with that term, our best bet is to get a time machine and take it up with Friedman.  Finally, I'm inclined to expand the description of crypto as a field within math and CS, to include the engineering aspects.  For example, one of the design criteria for AES was suitability for efficient hardware implementation.  Crypto research sometimes even spills over into physics, for example, Don Davis had a Crypto 95 (iirc) paper on generating random numbers from chaotic airflow inside a disk drive; there's also all the crypto-inspired work on quantum computing.  Any objections? Phr 13:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Go for it.  I think it's worth including the information that Friedman invented the term "cryptanalysis" but the notation section is not the place for it!  Also, it's inaccurate to say that "cryptology" isn't used because we use "cryptanalysis" -- cryptanalysis is not synonymous with cryptology, and cryptology is still used.  Each of the terms has their own subtlely different meaning, which is not particularly interesting, or what the article is about.  We probably shouldn't define cryptanalysis in that section at all (we can define it under the section "Cryptanalysis"), but we need to say somewhere (probably early) that cryptology is basically synonymous with cryptography in practice (because Cryptology redirects here).  Mangojuice 13:59, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terminology and description