On Thu, 25 Apr 2002, Rod Roark wrote: > Interesting, I never thought about that before. The "locking" > (and corresponding unlocking) could easily be done by xor'ing > against some string of pseudo-random characters that only > the encryptor knows how to produce.
I suspect the statistics of this process would allow a significant fraction (on average half?) of the hidden bits to peek through... which doesn't sound very secure to me. > > -- Rod > http://www.sunsetsystems.com/ > > On Thursday 25 April 2002 07:13 pm, Peter Jay Salzman wrote: > > begin Chris McKenzie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > Sure, I wasn't trying to intend a pun, I just mispelled. > > > > > > Modern encryption, assymetric processes. > > > > > > Alright, say I had a very rare piece of software, OpenStep 4.2/i386 and I > > > wanted to send it to you. However, you live in some remote jungle where > > > you can't copy a key. But I don't want the item to be stolen along the > > > way. So I put a lock on the box and send it to you. You can't open that > > > lock so in a ridiculous notion, you put another lock on it, one that you > > > have the key for and send the doubly locked box back to me. I unlock my > > > lock but the box is still locked by you. I send it back, and you unlock > > > your lock and have the software. > > > > hi chris, > > > > cool post. > > > > this isn't how modern crypto systems work, is it? this assumes that > > the "locks" commute. that for a given message A, a chris lock C and > > peter lock P: > > > > chris CA --> peter PCA --> chris C^(-1)PCA --> peter P^(-1)C^(-1)PCA > > > > but i can't actually unlock the software unless > > > > P^(-1)C^(-1) = C^(-1)P^(-1) > > > > i don't know much about modern crypto systems other than RSA type > > things. is this how they work? or am i reading too much into an > > analogy? I don't know much about them either (I just use them) but if P = peter's public key p = peter's private key C = chris's public key c = chris's private key and ptxt = decode( encode( ptxt, P ), p ) ptxt = decode( encode( ptxt, p ), P ) ptxt != decode( encode( ptxt, P ), P ) ptxt != decode( encode( ptxt, C ), C ) (critical assumptions) then ctxt = encode( encode( ptxt, c ), P ) encoded by chris is a secure message unencodeable only by peter using ptxt = decode( decode( ctxt, p ), C ) [...] --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Newmiller The ..... ..... Go Live... DCN:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Basics: ##.#. ##.#. Live Go... Live: OO#.. Dead: OO#.. Playing Research Engineer (Solar/Batteries O.O#. #.O#. with /Software/Embedded Controllers) .OO#. .OO#. rocks...2k --------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ vox-tech mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.lugod.org/mailman/listinfo/vox-tech