Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cryptography/Archive 3

message: Hi guys,
I'm not (yet) familiar with the guidelines of this project. Someone asked on the MD4 talk page whether MD4 was really the fourth in a series. As you can see from my reply there I'm looking for a way to add that historical information without duplicating it in all MDx articles. Perhaps you have already an established way to do this. Otherwise I was thinking to a little "The MD series" infobox, with (e.g.) the year of publication/creation of each algorithm and its inventor. Opinions? —Gennaro Prota•Talk 23:26, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I quickly put up a simple infobox to cope with the problem (see MD4). I know it's far from professional at the moment, but being unfamiliar with this project guidelines, I wanted to hear some comment first. If it is basically ok I'll make refinements. BTW, any reason why the MD4 article has no / tags? —Gennaro Prota•Talk 15:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps the infobox could be turned into a generic infobox for hash functions, and the series could be linked together through the 'derived from' and 'derived to' fields. Infoboxes should generally outline the factual characteristics of the subject, not provide context for the article. The latter is typically achieved through navboxes (navigation boxes) — we can use those for this purpose. In addition, a new "MD series" article could be created to serve as the main article for this infobox. Thoughts? -- intgr 17:35, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree, although I'd query whether we actually need a new MD series article? Could we not cover them all in Ronald Rivest? Only MD2, MD4 and MD5 are algorithms of note, and  of those (I believe) only MD4 and MD5 are related. — Matt Crypto 17:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If we're not going to have articles on MD1 and MD3 then is it really worth a navbox? Although the existence of such hash functions should be documented somewhere. Or what do you think should be the criteria for the navbox, would it be "MD series hash functions", "hash functions by Ronald Rivest" or something else? Also, wouldn't it be duplicating ? This problem is harder than I thought. :) -- intgr 19:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "MD series"? Looking for suggestions 

message: Beginning cross-post.
:See Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team#Stablepedia. If you wish to comment, please comment there. ★TWO YEARS OF MESSEDROCKER★ 03:44, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stablepedia 

message: Hi guys,
I just came upon Secure Hash Standard and I don't think I need to comment on how bad it is. Of course I'll try to help in as far as I can but I'm looking for others to work together. I'd say the first thing to do is to prepare a todo-list; or just decide to make the page a redirect to SHA hash functions. What isn't acceptable is the no-contents entry we have now. —Gennaro Prota•Talk 19:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may want to click on the "Edit this page" tab and fix the issues in question. Samboy 20:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extremely poor entry on Secure Hash Standard: let's improve or remove it 

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 17:46, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: I found the following set of crypto primitives yesterday Fast Flex.  It includes a dtream cipher, a block cipher, and a hash primitive.  Samboy 21:01, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting crypto primitives 

message: The following articles have been nominated for deletion as a group:
*StartCom
*StartCom Certification Authority
*StartCom Linux
While there's a conflict of interest concern that these were added by User:Startcom, the main issue as I see it is one of notability. I encourage Linux-knowledgeable editors to weigh in on this topic at the AfD, especially if you know of reliable sources that would establish notability per the Notability Guideline for Companies (and their products). If there are no reliable sources, that would be helpful to know, too. I don't know enough about the topic to understand which if any of the hits I'm turning up in a Google search meet the Reliable Sources Guideline -- for instance, does a listing on DistroWatch count? Likewise, does their connection to the XMPP Federation confer notability? Thanks, --A. B. (talk) 13:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/StartCom]] -- notable or not? 

message: I have made an extensive revision of the VEST cipher page on behalf of Synaptic Laboratories Limited, in response to false and/or misleading statements that have progressively entered that page over the last 6 months, to update the latest attack status and make other textual and editorial improvements. Please refer to the VEST talk page for detailed information on the recent changes to the page. 
We have strived to maintain a NPoV in our revision and have made use of extensive verifiable references. However, we are aware that we may not have fully achieved this objective and are proactively encouraging an open peer review and discussion of the page.  I am unfamiliar with the specifics of the peer-review process in Wikipedia and have opted to post here before attempting to follow the steps on Wikipedia:Peer_review. 
I encourage discussions on the VEST talk page preceding significant editing.
Thanks., 
Benjamin Gittins 14:39, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requesting a peer-review of the VEST website for NPoV, etc. 

message: I came across a very recent Wikipedia article (inserted within the last few weeks) titled "Duquesne Spy Ring" which is a near verbatim copy of a 14-page article with photos that's currently on the FBI's website.  I posed a question about the article on the Wikipedia:Village Pump, policy section (#35. When does verbatim copying from a government website become plagiarism?").   Both the FBI's article and the identical Wikipedia article are linked in the text of that policy question.
I have disputed the author's use of the {USGovernment} template because (a) his article is a verbatim copy of a lengthy U.S. government article, and therefore an inappropriate citation, and (b) that  U.S. government source he cited in the template is clearly not the source he used to create his Wikipedia article.  However, I haven't found any clear policy statement in Wikipedia that prohibits or even discourages extensive verbatim copying of sources in the public domain.
My question here relates directly to eleven good, A-class cryptography articles from U.S. Government public domain sources than I could easily Wifify and insert verbatim in Wikipedia.  I obtained all eleven publications at the National Security Agency's National Cryptologic Museum.  All eleven publications are U.S. Government publications.  All include the author's name, but none have copyright notices.  And because they are U.S. government publications I presume them all to be in the public domain — and can be freely copied and used.  If there's no real policy concerns by the Wiki administration about wholesale copying of U.S. government sources, how do  members of this project feel about inserting (Wikified) verbatim U.S.government cryptologic articles in Wikipedia with only the current (and IMHO inadequate) {USGovernment} template used as a source cite at the end of each article?  Do you believe it's plagiarism to do that?  Or at the very least unethical?  Is there some other template or flag that can be used to alert readers that such articles are direct copies from another source?
Don't get me wrong.  I have no intention of copying verbatim the government's articles I have in my possession, and inserting them in Wikipedia.  What I'm looking for is suggestions and guidance on what to me seems to be plagiarism — the verbatim copying of U.S. government publications — and its prevention if it's considered to be an undesireable practice in Wikipedia.
Any help?
K. Kellogg-Smith 02:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My personal opinion here: do it!!  It's free content, it's probably a vast improvement on the articles in question, and once submitted, the articles can likely be improved by editing.  Watch out for WP:OR, though - are all those articles adequately sourced?  As long as we attribute the information to the source and state that it's public domain, we're covered, and the authors of the government stuff get proper credit because we'll attribute them (which we don't even have to do).  Personally, if I was one of those authors, I would be proud that my work was reaching as many people as possible.  However, I would be cautious in one regard: double check that the documents in question are really produced by the US Federal Government, not merely documents they have permission to display or whatever.  But yeah, if they really are public domain, I don't think there's an ethical concern.. but if you do, you could always write to the author and ask permission (not that you'd need to, if it's public domain).  I'm not sure about the tagging templates.  I suppose I would just begin with a "* This article incorporates text from Foo bar, a US Federal Government publication from the National Cryptologic Museum, which is in the public domain." at the end of the article.  Mangojuicetalk 03:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it is a long standing tradition here at Wikipedia to initiate an article by using a verbatim but wikified copy of some public domain article. It is not considered plagiarism, it is simply reusing good stuff. I seen any amount of articles that state something like "This article was based on an article in XXXX encyclopedia from 1911 which is now in the public domain". But as Mangojuice pointed out, check carefully that the articles you want to reuse really are free to use. Just because they are published on a US government site doesn't necessarily mean they were produced by the US government. --David Göthberg 22:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  When does verbatim copying from a government website become plagiarism? Since plagiarism is defined as "Plagiarism is the practice of claiming, or implying, original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement.", verbatim copying becomes plagiarism only when there is inadequate acknowledgement. So I agree with Mango -- if the question is "Should encylopedic public-domain content be added to Wikipedia?", the answer is Yes -- please do add encylopedic public-domain content to Wikipedia, acknowledging it appropriately. Or are you really asking "What is the appropriate way to acknowledge that the entire article was copied from some other source?"? --75.48.165.135 14:33, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is verbatim copying of U.S. government crypto sources plagiarism? 

message: If your interested, please see the discussion there.--agr 16:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ouch, now it is deleted. Would have been interesting to take a look at it. Ah well, it was probably junk. --David Göthberg 16:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of passwords used in fiction]]

message: Hi everyone, today I stumbled on the new Template:Espionage. It seems nice but is currently not categorised and not handled by any WikiProject. After a quick look around I think it should either be handled by WikiProject Military history (talk) or WikiProject Cryptography (talk) or perhaps even jointly handled? So what do you guys think? 
I left this message on the talk pages of both WikiProjects.
(I am a participant in the WikiProject Cryptography but not the WikiProject Military history.)
--David Göthberg 15:09, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template:Espionage 

message: I have suggested that the article Applications in cryptography be deleted. Discuss it at: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Applications in cryptography
--David Göthberg 16:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page delete? Applications in cryptography 

message: Today I discovered that Mangojuice recently asked the robot AlexNewArtBot to search for and list new articles that contain cryptography related words. The robot logs what it finds at this page: Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography/New articles.
So now we can easily find and take care of new articles that might be crypto related. Thanks Mangojuice!
Mangojuice: Is this ready to be fully deployed? That is, can I add information about this on our WikiProject page under "Editor oriented lists" etc?
And how often does the robot run? It seems to be more or less every day, right?
And if we want more search words etc can we ask you for help? Since editing the search words for that bot looked really tricky.
Anything else we need to know about the bot?
--David Göthberg 22:36, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's the same bot that does lots of other of these lists.  Go to User:AlexNewArtBot to learn about it.  I think the filter is working okay: there were some false positives having to do with Rap music (another meaning of "cipher").  The parameters can be tweaked further, too.  Yeah, I think it's ready for "prime time."  Mangojuicetalk 01:28, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New cryptography article search 

message: :Moved here by David Göthberg from the talk page of Cryptography: 
Please check-out the new Wikipedia page dedicated to a person named Ed Trice.  Specifically, the "encryption inventions" section.  He claims to have created an "Inexhaustible One-Time Pad Cipher Protocol" (IOTPCP).
You will encounter such unusual quotes as-
:In order to never disclose the exact nature of this encryption technology, a patent for it was never filed.
:The encryption engine works like a digital version of an Enigma machine but of functionally infinite size ...
:... with an inexhaustible key size, the IOTPCP encryption method is virtually immune from brute force attack.
This is original research of the most unverifiable kind with the most grandiose claims.  There are no references, no program has been written to implement its "infinite" cryptographic algorithm and no paper has been published in any journal.  --AceVentura 05:31, 29 July 2007
:Yeah, seems to be a terrible article. Thanks AceVentura for "sounding the alarm" on this. --David Göthberg 14:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extraordinary claims 

message: When we do not have any more specific disambiguation naming for a cryptography related article:
# Block size (cryptography)
* This form was agreed upon long ago by us crypto editors. --David Göthberg 11:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Well, I think it can be used as fallback to. Articles can be moved to more specific disambig naming if/when we figure out what to name them. --David Göthberg 05:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  General 

message: # Tiger hash
# Tiger hash function
# Tiger (hash)
# Tiger (hash function)
# Tiger (cryptography)
* I prefer Tiger (hash) or Tiger (hash function). --David Göthberg 11:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hash functions 

message: # Blowfish cipher
# Blowfish block cipher
# Blowfish (cipher)
# Blowfish (block cipher)
# Blowfish (cryptography)
* I prefer Blowfish (cipher). --David Göthberg 11:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ciphers 

message: We have at-least one case where there are a stream cipher and block cipher with the same name. Then we need a little extra disambiguation:
# ABC block cipher
# ABC stream cipher
:or
# ABC (block cipher)
# ABC (stream cipher)
* I prefer ABC (block cipher) / ABC (stream cipher). --David Göthberg 11:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stream ciphers vs. block ciphers 

message: (Note that some PRNGs are also stream ciphers and then they probably should be disambiguated as ciphers.)
# Fortuna pseudorandom number generator
# Fortuna (pseudorandom number generator)
# Fortuna PRNG
# Fortuna (PRNG)
# Fortuna (CSPRNG)
# Fortuna (cryptography)
* Very tough choice. I think I prefer Fortuna (cryptography) since Fortuna (PRNG) is to "cryptic" for the general audience. --David Göthberg 11:58, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Oh, that is an interesting suggestion, I like it. I see Fortuna as "pseudorandom", but simply "random" is shorter and probably less cryptic for the general audience. So perhaps Fortuna (random number generator) or Fortuna (cryptography). --David Göthberg 05:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Would Fortuna (number generator) be suitable?  That would be shorter and avoid the "random" vs. "pseudorandom" issue.  —David Levy 08:40, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pseudorandom number generators (PRNGs) 

message: (Note, some cipher machines are rotor machines, some are not.)
# Mercury machine
# Mercury cipher machine
# Mercury rotor machine
# Mercury (machine)
# Mercury (cipher machine)
# Mercury (rotor machine)
* I prefer Mercury (cipher machine). We have used "rotor machine" for some articles about rotor machines but that might be to "cryptic" for the general audience. --David Göthberg 12:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Yeah, a cipher machine article has been suggested many times over the years. But pretty much all text we could put in such an article is already in other articles like History of cryptography and so on. But it could probable be a short overview article with links to further reading in those other articles. --David Göthberg 05:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cipher machines 

message: # Firefly key exchange protocol
# Firefly (key exchange protocol)
# Firefly (protocol)
# Firefly (cryptography)
* I prefer Firefly (cryptography) or Firefly key exchange protocol. --David Göthberg 12:17, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Ah, right you are. Now I read up on Firefly, it seems to be a key-agreement protocol. So perhaps Firefly (key-agreement protocol). But if we are in doubt what it is then I think we could fallback to Firefly (cryptography). --David Göthberg 05:01, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: *Is there another notable protocol called "Firefly" from which this needs to be disambiguated?  If not, why do we want the added specificity?  To me, this doesn't jibe with the Blowfish (cipher) opinions expressed above.  —David Levy 08:45, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: * Not that I know of. But I just find "protocol" to be to unspecific since it can mean so many different things, see for-instance Protocol (diplomacy). --David Göthberg 16:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

text: * Hehe. I am one of your devoted readers. You often bring up new interesting views on matters. :)) --David Göthberg 16:23, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protocols etc 

message: So what's our conclusion? Should it be Tiger (hash function) and Blowfish (cipher) or should it be Tiger (cryptography) and Blowfish (cryptography)? Or perhaps it is too hard to decide and we'll leave it for now? Personally I am not sure which disambig naming I prefer. --David Göthberg 13:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Conclusion? 

message: ROT13 has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. hbdragon88 21:57, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ROT13 

message: I am currently doing some testing with a slightly new look and new code for the crypto navboxes. The primary visual change is to use dots "·" instead of pipes "|" between the links since that seems to be the new fad for navboxes. I also tried to use the new standard  although that didn't really make our code simpler, but it slightly changed the appearance of our navboxes and added the [hide] feature. (Although personally I find the [hide] feature unnecessary in our case.) So take a look at the old crypto stream box and the new test example. Tell what you think about it on this talk page. 
Oh, by the way, I of course will keep the "box in a box" thing we use now. If you don't know what that means take a look at the examples at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Cryptography#Navigational templates.
 
--David Göthberg 12:00, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The crypto navboxes 

message: *
*
:: --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:47, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  updated --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed deletions 

message: I'd like to draw attention to Kleptography and Cryptovirology, articles about terms that have not (as far as I know) entered into mainstream usage outside the publications of Young and Yung. There's a hint of self-promotion about them, too. — Matt Crypto 21:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concern: [[Kleptography]] and [[Cryptovirology]] 

message: I've been doing a good deal on intelligence disciplines, with much more to do, such as an article that pulls together the disciplines of intelligence and how they work with the political process. SIGINT, which has several daughter articles, was in the cryptography category, and I see no reason to take it out although I only make external references to things such as cryptanalysis.
Nevertheless, I'm sure there are people in this Project that would have expertise, and, hopefully interest. Feel free to look through this set, and, if you are interested, the MASINT set of articles. Howard C. Berkowitz 21:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sort of related articles? 

message: :: --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 19:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed deletion: ViPNet Safe Disk and ViPNet Technology 

message: Spam filter notice
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thread_title:  There's a spam filter notice on this talk page... 

message: I've disabled it, but it prevented new sections from being posted here. That's pretty bad, when you're adding a new section or whatever. 132.205.99.122 (talk) 23:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: removed

message: Error-correcting codes with feedback has been nominated for deletion, see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Error-correcting codes with feedback 132.205.99.122 (talk) 23:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[WP:AFD]] on [[Error-correcting codes with feedback]] 

message: I know infoboxes full of links are popular, but are we sure they are valuable in this instance?
Why does each page on, for example, stream ciphers benefit from having a big list of stream ciphers on it?  I wonder how often these are used - on the rare occasions someone does want to navigate from one stream cipher to another unrelated one, the stream cipher category will do that just fine. 
And it only leaves us open to big, pointless fights about which stream ciphers should be in the list. 
What do folk think? — ciphergoth 23:30, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Which "fights" are you talking about? I haven't witnessed any. -- intgr [talk] 03:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe I'm wrong about the fight, in which case the other points still stand.  I'm anticipating one, though, since I just edited some lists to match my perception of which ones are considered interesting in the community, and dropped one cipher which was at one point mentioned in practically every article in Wikipedia thanks to a vigorous publicity campaign by its designer.  Though I have no vested interest in which ciphers go in the list, I can't reference any Official List of stream ciphers the community finds interesting to back up my choices, so if challenged, we'll have to either put every cipher in the appropriate category in the list or drop the list altogether.  Since I don't think the list is that useful anyway, I think we should do the latter, and that we shouldn't wait for a fight before we do it. — ciphergoth 09:04, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Infoboxes 

message: (Cross-posting to wikiproject cryptography, wikiproject computer science, and Wikiproject military history) 
Over my Christmas vacation, I happened to get out to the National Cryptologic Museum at the NSA. I photographed basically everything in the musuem, (including all the nameplates so that I could later identify the photographs). There's a *LOT* of neat stuff there.  
I've uploaded them to commons, and now I need help insterting them into articles and whatnot. You can find the gallery at User:Raul654/favpics/National Cryptologic Museum. Please insert captions into the gallery (red links for any nonexistent articles) and insert the pictures into relevant articles. (talk) 04:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi Raul, thanks for uploading these. I'd love to visit the NSA museum some day, so I'm quite envious. I think we've illustrated some articles using NSA museum photos already, but I'm sure there's places we can use these new ones. — Matt Crypto 15:03, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've seen a few of the ones we already have - they're mostly pretty low res shots (typically 400x600 or less). The ones I just uploaded are much higher resolution and typically I have two or three of the same exhibit (just to make sure that one of them came out well) Raul654 (talk) 16:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Have pics, need help