Saturday, February 15, 2003, 1:25:19 PM, Daniel Colonnese wrote:
DC> A few days ago this article came out: DC> http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDi DC> spWhat=object&enDispWho=Articles%5El306&enZone=Technology&enVersion=0& DC> A company called Meganet is claiming that their VME encryption is DC> unbreakable and even offering prizes such as a Ferrari or $1m. to anyone DC> who could break into a VME-protected file. DC> Cool huh? On closer inspection, not really. The company and its claims have been around for a while. (And the challenge has expired). As to those claims, having recently been reading about Kolmogorov complexity, Chaitin's omega and AIT I was immediately struck by this quote from http://www.meganet.com/technology/intro.htm : The basis of VME is a Virtual Matrix, a matrix of binary values which is, in theory, infinite in size and therefore contains no redundant values. The data to be encrypted is compared to the data in the Virtual Matrix. Once a match is found, a set of pointers that indicate how to navigate inside the Virtual Matrix is created. Infinite matrix, "therefore" no redundant values...uhuh...just figure out the pointers -- sure. It gets worse, much worse (the data never gets sent! just some pointers! and we triple-encrypt those! etc.), and Bruce Schneier has devoted some non-too-kind words to this and other security companies' "snake oil" at http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-9902.html -- Cliff ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?[EMAIL PROTECTED]
