In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Perry E. Metzger" writes: >> There is a world out here that's called the IT industry. > >Yes, there is. They routinely deploy bad security because they don't >get people who know what they are doing involved. See WEP, for >example, or a thousand other things.
Yes, it would really be desirable for the cryptographers to come down from their mount olympus more often. Too bad they never answer invitations :-( >I have no idea what you're talking about, Thanks for confirming what I wrote just a second ago above. >If you're talking about MD5 which is used in many modern Unixes, it >was done by Ron Rivest, and even though he's really good, it has >recently been (quite badly) broken. Again. >> At the time where I wrote GBDE, the best that was offered was CGD (and >> similar) and users (not cryptographers!) didn't trust it and history >> have so far repeated. > >I have no idea what you are talking about here. And again. >> I can add another property of the elite society of cryptographers: >> if you are not a card carrying member of their society, the majority >> of their members can not even be bothered to reply to an email from >> an outsider. This does hamper communiation a bit. > >Actually, you can show up at any crypto conference you like, I have a better idea: Why don't we get the cryptographers to show up at computer science conferences ? That would get the gospel out to a far wider crowd without spoiling the highly specialized conferences for the cryptographers. >> Maybe the problem is that cryptographers, like true computer >> scientists, write in nothing less portable than pencil number two ? > >It is rare to see a new algorithm show up from someone like Ron Rivest >without some C code also appearing. That's pretty common in the crypto >world. When the Chinese team that cracked a bunch of hash algorithms >last summer presented their work, they had worked examples of their >stuff. You seem to misunderstand something: Computer users don't call MD5 directly. They use software which makes the calls for them. Sometimes this software has a goal which is different from calling crypto algorithms, in fact some of them even have the impropiety of regarding the crypt algorithms as mere tools. >I think you don't quite get it the point. There are many points not being got here. >1) No one claims that you need to be a cryptographer to write > something like GBDE. What is being claimed is that you should not > have invented your own cryptographic modes, and that you might have > wanted to ask some professionals about your approach. You have not actually studied GBDE yet, right ? You don't actually know if I invented my own "cryptographic modes" or not, do you ? >2) CGD *has* been looked at by a bunch of people, and was written to > carefully use standard algorithms in a standard way. If you don't > like using NetBSD code because NetBSD people have cooties, fine -- > I don't care, write your own. However, you should at least pay the > same attention to conservative use of cryptographic algorithms and > having people review your work is a good idea, too. Even if I were alone in the world with the sentiment, I would never call CGDs use of the same key for all sectors "conservative". >3) You've made some very bizarre claims about the security of your > system. Some of these claims have already been shown on their face > to be incorrect, such as your claimed work factor for breaking your > new "improved" crypto modes. Sorry, they have only been disproved in a significantly larger universe than the one my users inhabit. That doesn't count to me. > Instead, he admitted his mistakes and wrote a version 2. Any qualified, factually correct critique of GBDE will be taken very serious by me. I am very much looking forward to it. What Roland has provided is not it. > Are your users better served by you digging in your heels and > saying "GDBE is perfect as it is", Now, there is one thing I have never said and would never say. -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 [EMAIL PROTECTED] | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. _______________________________________________ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[EMAIL PROTECTED]"