Cryptography-Digest Digest #712, Volume #12 Mon, 18 Sep 00 21:13:00 EDT
Contents:
Re: ExCSS Source Code (Bryan Olson)
Re: A conjecture - thoughts? (Andru Luvisi)
Re: Crypto-PC ("Rich Ankney")
Quasi Algorithms / Quasi Functions and Polymorph Encryption ("Kostadin Bajalcaliev")
Quasi Algorithms / Quasi Functions and Polymorph Encryption [an alternative
intorduction] ("Kostadin Bajalcaliev")
Re: Software patents are evil. (Bill Unruh)
Re: Software patents are evil. ("Dann Corbit")
Re: help hacking Crypt() ("root@localhost " <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>)
Re: ExCSS Source Code (Bill Unruh)
Re: Double Encryption Illegal? (John Savard)
Re: A conjecture - thoughts? (John Savard)
Re: ExCSS Source Code (Bryan Olson)
Re: A conjecture - thoughts? (Benjamin Goldberg)
Re: transformation completeness and avalanche effect (Andru Luvisi)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bryan Olson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ExCSS Source Code
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 23:01:06 GMT
Bill Unruh wrote:
> Actually my reading was that since a CD cannot be read in a
> floppy disk drive, just putting it on CD controlled access
> and thus brought DCMA into force.
When you say it was your reading, does that mean you thought
that was the intent of the law, or just that you could
justify that interpretation from the meaning of the words?
> The law is totally incompetently written.
Personally I disagree. I think the intent of the
anti-circumvention provisions is reprehensible but clear.
--Bryan
--
email: bolson at certicom dot com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Andru Luvisi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A conjecture - thoughts?
Date: 18 Sep 2000 15:29:04 -0700
John Myre <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
[snipped perfect description of my thoughts]
> But then if you want to evaluate f(g(x)), what do you use for
> x_0 when you evaluate f()? Syntatically I think you have to
> use g(x) but then there isn't any particular reason to think
> that f() and g() commute any more.
Yes, and yes.
It seems that for a near converse, you would need to require that
b(x, b(y, z)) = b(y, b(x, z)) for all x, y, and z in whatever domain
you're living in at the moment.
> If this can be spruced up, however, it is an interesting
> question: can we prove some interesting basis for when
> functions commute under composition?
That's exactly what I'm wondering.
Andru
--
Andru Luvisi, Programmer/Analyst
------------------------------
From: "Rich Ankney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Crypto-PC
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 19:39:41 -0400
Check out www.trustedpc.org. There are a couple of white papers
and a huge spec. I'm personally aware of several Intel initiatives
along this line, but they change their mind frequently (esp. when
the government changes the export rules).
Regards,
Rich
Regards,
Rich
Mok-Kong Shen wrote in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>
>A newspaper article says that there will be a crypto-
>processor for enabling secure e-commerce transactions
>done on PC and that the specification is currently
>being drafted by TCPA, Trusted Computing Platform Alliance.
>Does anyone know something about that projected processor?
>
>M. K. Shen
------------------------------
From: "Kostadin Bajalcaliev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Quasi Algorithms / Quasi Functions and Polymorph Encryption
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 01:40:59 +0200
Dear cryptographers
After years of research finally thesis covering my theory of polymorph
encryption is available at:
http://home.cyberarmy.com/kbajalc/algo/pme
The thesis discusses a new approach in Block-cipher design originally
introduced in my thesis about ANIGMA block-cipher in 1997. There is both
practical and theoretic approach to the subject just enough to illustrate
the idea and to give a basic mathematical background not requiring extensive
knowledge of mathematics and cryptography [if you are expert in these fields
it will be an easy reading for you].
Any comment or suggestions are more then welcome, every effort from you to
help me to continue my research will be of great importance to me.
KB
PS: The thesis and all the referenced material in it is available on:
http://home.cyberarmy.com/kbajalc
http://kbajalc.8m.com/
http://eon.pmf.ukim.edu.mk/~kbajalc
[All these sites are mirrors]
------------------------------
From: "Kostadin Bajalcaliev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Quasi Algorithms / Quasi Functions and Polymorph Encryption [an alternative
intorduction]
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 01:44:20 +0200
Hello again
Here below is a citation of the part 8 from Book 1 of Aristotle Metaphysics.
Even written thousands
of years ago, it depicts the current stain in the science of cryptography.
There are different opinions what is the criteria to make a secure cipher.
You can read different approaches each of them promoting one aspect, there
are opinions that the Feistel Network is essential to design cipher
immune to Differential and Liner Cryptoanalysis, other authors give the
primatum to the F-function. There is one good constatation that we need math
to get the ciphers work but a lot of intuition to design them secure. This
confusion state is nothing new in any science, here what Aristotle have to
say for his own time: [continued after the citation]
======================== Beginning =====================
Those, then, who say the universe is one and posit one kind of thing as
matter, and as corporeal matter which has spatial magnitude, evidently go
astray in many ways. For they posit the elements of bodies only, not of
incorporeal things, though there are also incorporeal things. And in trying
to state the causes of generation and destruction, and in giving a physical
account of all things, they do away with the cause of movement. Further,
they err in not positing the substance, i.e. the essence, as the cause of
anything, and besides this in lightly calling any of the simple bodies
except earth the first principle, without inquiring how they are produced
out of one anothers-I mean fire, water, earth, and air. For some things are
produced out of each other by combination, others by separation, and this
makes the greatest difference to their priority and posteriority. For (1) in
a way the property of being most elementary of all would seem to belong to
the first thing from which they are produced by combination, and this
property would belong to the most fine-grained and subtle of bodies.
For this reason those who make fire the principle would be most in agreement
with this argument. But each of the other thinkers agrees that the element
of corporeal things is of this sort. At least none of those who named one
element claimed that earth was the element, evidently because of the
coarseness of its grain. (Of the other three elements each has found some
judge on its side; for some maintain that fire, others that water, others
that air is the element. Yet why, after all, do they not name earth also, as
most men do? For people say all things are earth Hesiod says earth was
produced first of corporeal things; so primitive and popular has the opinion
been.) According to this argument, then, no one would be right who either
says the first principle is any of the elements other than fire, or supposes
it to be denser than air but rarer than water. But (2) if that which is
later in generation is prior in nature, and that which is concocted and
compounded is later in generation, the contrary of what we have been saying
must be true,-water must be prior to air, and earth to water.
===========================END==========================
I hope that at least receivers of this message form Europe have already read
Aristotle works. How ever, we have the same war of ideas and opinions today.
Main question is what is the essence of security, how to define and name
that phantom substance the designers put in their work. And make the rest of
us to wander how a simple design as RC5 or Blowfish can be secure on one
side. On other the homemade cipher having kilometers (or miles if you
prefer) of code and complicated mathematical theory behind may serve just as
scholar example of weak design.
I have no intention to play the role of neither Aristotle, nor I thing to
have King Solomon power of judgement. But I am trying to answer that simple
question. What make the cipher secure? Even I have included my own design in
the thesis as an example it is not my intention to convince you that I have
invented the best cipher ever since. On the contrary other design clearly
named in the thesis already having the label 'secure' contain a realization
of the theory discussed.
I hope you will find a little time to read my thesis, it is not the regular
amateur-eureka-work.
Best Regards
Kb
http://home.cyberarmy.com/kbajalc/algo/pme
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bill Unruh)
Subject: Re: Software patents are evil.
Date: 19 Sep 2000 00:00:18 GMT
In <0Gtx5.217$hu1.995@client> "Dann Corbit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
]Software patents are evil, akin to claiming ownership of math. Hopefully,
I do not like them either, but this is not correct. software patents do
not patent math. They patent a particular way of carrying out some
operation to achieve a non-trivial goal. thus RSA did NOT patent modular
exponentiation. You can ( an dcould 10 uears ago) do exponentials mod a
product of primes all you want. What was protected was teh use of that
modular exponentiation in order to carry out a specific form of
encryption.
]at some point, everyone will discover that most of the money is made by the
]lawyers and protection would be better served by a simple copyright. If the
As IBM found with their BIOS copyright does not protect from someone
else recreating it on their own.
]idea is so trivial that anyone can generate it from first principles, that
]is the sort of thing that would really *need* patent protection and yet it
]is the very thing which deserves it the least.
]I will (of course) obey any law (even if absurd). But I won't have to like
]it. I see no problem with copyrights. Hard work should not simply be
]stolen. On the other hand, claiming ownership of a mathematical concepts is
Stolen? It is not stolen. You retain everything you had befor hand.
Copyright is a monopoly right granted by the government. It has nothing
to do with ownership of property or theft.
]putrid. Apparently, the courts lack a basic understanding of mathematics or
]such patents would never be granted, since patenting math is illegal.
The courts do not grant patents. The patent office does. The courts can
decide if a patent is valid. If you can show that the patent is
"patenting math" then the courts will find it invalid.
Patents an copyrights are both monopoly rights granted by the govenment.
They may have a social benefit. They also have a social cost, as the
USSR found in their granting of monopoly rights to businesses. Society
should make sure that they get back a lot for the grant of such monopoly
rights.
------------------------------
From: "Dann Corbit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Software patents are evil.
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 17:05:57 -0700
"Terry Ritter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
[SNIP]
> >Apparently, the courts lack a basic understanding of mathematics or
> >such patents would never be granted, since patenting math is illegal.
>
> So, basically, you imagine that you have a deeper understanding of
> patent law than patent-law courts, patent offices, and various
> patent-law attorneys? How odd.
An algorithm is nothing but an implementation of a mathematical concept.
All of them. Deeper understanding of law? I doubt it, except for knowing
the laws are absurd if (indeed) they grant ownership to math.
> Patents on "processes" ("do this, do that") have been common for at
> least a century. Patents on a computational process which ends up
> providing some benefit for use seems a very natural extension.
And a mathematical formulation is not ownable.
I realize that there is an irreconcilable difference of opinion. You
obviously think it is just fine to own an algorithm. I think it's
poppycock. The law says you are right and I will obey it.
No amount of wrangling will convince me that the ownership of math is OK
under certain circumstances. I do hope that legal entanglements with this
sort of thing do make it an entirely untractable proposition. On the other
hand, the rest of the decay of society makes me believe that to be unlikely.
If humans could behave in an ideal manner, the newsgroup sci.crypt would be
completely devoid of purpose.
--
C-FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
"The C-FAQ Book" ISBN 0-201-84519-9
C.A.P. Newsgroup http://www.dejanews.com/~c_a_p
C.A.P. FAQ: ftp://38.168.214.175/pub/Chess%20Analysis%20Project%20FAQ.htm
------------------------------
From: "root@localhost <spamthis>" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: help hacking Crypt()
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 19:53:37 -0400
Peter Schlosser wrote:
>
> I have a FTP deamon running on one of my servers, that I'd like to
> configure user accounts for using Perl scripts. I have examined its
> configuration files, and outlined the format the records must be in.
> I have one issue that is left to be resolved, and that's the
> encryption of the passowrds.
>
> Repeated requests to the author for assistance have gone unanswered.
> I suspect the method used is some kind of cipher. Using the user
> interface of this FTP server, I can create accounts with known
> passwords, and then look at the config files after the passwords have
> been ciphered.
> All I want to do is copy the method used, so I can set up these
> accounts in a more automated way. Some examples of the password
> encodings are:
>
> password: "rb17nc01" -> "(v2V'*Tz)o"
> password: "65nw52ts" -> "Gnjd^Hjg_w"
> password: "35st05ge" -> "H3dtUMAm69"
>
> Can anyone help?
>
You are not trying to do anything unethical IF the server is YOURS.
And if the server is yours, just get a network sniffer and read the
passwords of the incoming ftp connections on port 20.
Remember "Your encryption is ONLY as secure as the server upon which
it is running."
Ftp sends passwords in the clear. They are only encrypted on the
server.
> I'm not trying to do anything unethical, am I?
Not if it is your server.
> -------------------<====================>-------------------
> Peter Schlosser Peter at NoSpamoni.Signature.Net
> "Jack of all trades, master of none."
--
If children don't know why their grandparents did what they
did, shall those children know what is worth preserving and what
should change?
http://www.cryptography.org/getpgp.htm
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Bill Unruh)
Subject: Re: ExCSS Source Code
Date: 19 Sep 2000 00:07:11 GMT
In <8q66r6$lrt$[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Bryan Olson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>Bill Unruh wrote:
>> Actually my reading was that since a CD cannot be read in a
>> floppy disk drive, just putting it on CD controlled access
>> and thus brought DCMA into force.
>When you say it was your reading, does that mean you thought
>that was the intent of the law, or just that you could
>justify that interpretation from the meaning of the words?
I cannot guess intent, although I suspect that was not its intent.
I meant that I felt that I could justify that interpretation the words
in the act.
>> The law is totally incompetently written.
>Personally I disagree. I think the intent of the
>anti-circumvention provisions is reprehensible but clear.
Laws are not made of intents but of words, which have a separate
existence from the intent. Intent is impossible to determine. Who knows
what the intent was. It could have been to reap some campaign money, who
knows. Once it is passed it is the words which are important.
I also think that it is reprehensible. Copyright is a monopoly grant by
the state. The state should not then get into the business of also
enforcing that monopoly by criminal law. The state has already given up
a huge amount by granting the monopoly, and now is also being asked to
shore up incompetence in the person;s protection of that monopoly.
>--Bryan
>--
>email: bolson at certicom dot com
>Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
>Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Savard)
Subject: Re: Double Encryption Illegal?
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 23:37:26 GMT
On Mon, 18 Sep 2000 10:13:01 -0400, "root@localhost <spamthis>"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote, in part:
>He said that applying Ceaser cipher twice does not enhance security. He
>was correct in that statement.
That may be, but that was not the statement quoted and contradicted.
Essentially, the case where multiple encryption would do nothing is if
the cipher were a *group*: that is, there existed a key k3 such that
for any keys k1 and k2, E(E(x,k1),k2) = E(x,k3); that is, there would
exist a key, even if it was hard to find, for any two other keys such
that encrypting with that key would be the same as encrypting twice,
with those two other keys in order.
That's true for the Caesar cipher, but it certainly isn't true for the
AES candidates.
John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/crypto.htm
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (John Savard)
Subject: Re: A conjecture - thoughts?
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 23:28:06 GMT
On 18 Sep 2000 11:27:24 -0700, Andru Luvisi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote, in part:
>If f() and g() commute, that is f(g(x)) = g(f(x)) for all x, then
>f() and g() are both powers of some base function, b^y(x_0, x),
>where x_0 and x are the same the first time through, x_0 stays the
>same on every itteration, and the output is fed back into x.
>I have been able to find base functions for every pair f() and g() I
>can think of, even arbitrary sboxes which I have designed that
>commute.
I do not know whether this case _disproves_ your conjecture, or
whether it merely shows that, if a base function can be constructed
even for this case, that your conjecture is not useful, but here it
is:
Let f(x) be a monalphabetic substitution applied to the text message
x;
and let g(x) be a transposition cipher applied to the text message x.
(Essentially, this is equivalent to, where z = x+iy, f(z)= cos(x) + iy
and g(z)= x + i*e^(1/(y*y)) ... two functions which act on independent
'pieces' of the value they are given.)
John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/crypto.htm
------------------------------
From: Bryan Olson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: ExCSS Source Code
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 00:33:43 GMT
Eric Lee Green wrote:
> The "effectively controlled" part is what
> results in Fair Use problems, because it basically says that when you
buy a
> DVD, you cannot access it in ways that you wish, you can only access
it in
> ways that the DVDCCA wishes (via its "effectively controlled access"
> mechanisms). Such as not being able to skip commercials. This is
similar to a
> book publisher saying that once you obtain a book, you must access it
from
> page 1 to page 500, and you are forbidden under penalty of law to skip
the
> advertising that is inserted on every other page and also forbidden
under
> penalty of law from including snippets of the book as part of a
review.
If the book publisher included some mechanism to prevent you
from doing so, then I agree it would be similar. He cannot
justify "under penalty of law" unless there is such a law.
Of course it's also similar to how movies were marketed for
most of the time that there have been movies. In the
theater (or on TV before the days of the VCR) we pretty much
had to take the work as they chose to show it.
> The question is whether a) this violates your property rights
> as the owner of the physical object (whether it be a book or a
> DVD),
Any specific law you are referring to? The opposition is
sure to point to Congress's constitutional power to secure
for authors the exclusive right to their works (Article 1,
Section 8).
> and b) does this prohibition against including "reasonable"
> amounts of material in your reviews violate your 1st Amendment
> right to engage in critical speech?
There is no prohibition against including the material. Your
right to deliver your speech may have a very different legal
status from the actions you take to prepare it.
--Bryan
--
email: bolson at certicom dot com
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Benjamin Goldberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: A conjecture - thoughts?
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2000 00:56:13 GMT
David A. Wagner wrote:
>
> Andru Luvisi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > If f() and g() commute, that is f(g(x)) = g(f(x)) for all x, then
> > f() and g() are both powers of some base function, b^y(x_0, x),
> > where x_0 and x are the same the first time through, x_0 stays the
> > same on every itteration, and the output is fed back into x.
>
> It's clearly true, in a trivial sense, since every function f
> can be written in such a form, regardless of whether it commutes
> with some other g or not. Just take y=1.
>
> What were you really asking?
While it's true that every f can be written as b^y(x_0, x), with y=1,
and every g can be written as b^y(x_0, x), with y=1, it might not be
true that all commuting f and g can be written with the *same* b, but
different y.
Andru is asking, IF f and g commute, can they be written in terms of the
same b, using a different y?
--
... perfection has been reached not when there is nothing left to
add, but when there is nothing left to take away. (from RFC 1925)
------------------------------
From: Andru Luvisi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: transformation completeness and avalanche effect
Date: 18 Sep 2000 17:50:30 -0700
"Stanley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi,
>
> I wonder if anyone could answer the question below?
> If a (symmetric) cipher that exhibits transformation completeness and have
> good avalanche effect, does it necessary to be a good cipher(I mean its
> security strength is substantial)? Thanks.
>
> Stanley
Nope. Taking a variation on a previous post of mine, let's say we
call T(x) DES encryption with an all zero key, and U(x) be DES
decryption with an all zero key. Let's make our algorithm be:
Encryption: c = E_k(p) = T(p XOR k)
Decryption: p = D_k(c) = U(c) XOR k
Good avalanche, yes, but totally insecure against a known plaintext
attack. If we know c and p, we just compute p XOR U(c) and we have
the key k.
Andru
--
Andru Luvisi, Programmer/Analyst
------------------------------
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