On Tue, 11 Jan 2000 09:11:04 -0500, Roger Turk wrote:
> Let me give you my idea of public key/private key usage by going back about
> 40 years. This is in the day where encryption was performed by mechanical
> crypto machines that had a number of rotors that could each be assembled in
> various manners. As the encrypter typed the plain text message, the crypto
> machine would generate a letter, increment the rotor so that if the same key
> was typed, a different letter would be generated. There would be literally
> thousands of ways the rotors could be assembled. The message would be the 5
> character group messages that Sam Heywood mentioned.
<snip>
Hello Roger:
What you have described above is the type of machine that incorporates the
technology of the Nazi "enigma" machine, as I understand it. I did not
realize that many similar types of machines were in common use around that
time. According to my understanding, I believe the "enigma" machine used
private key encoding only. Instructions for the setup for the gears and
rotors would be sent by secure means, such as by dead drop or by courier.
I found the rest of your post concerning private and public keys also very
informative. Thanx.
Sam Heywood
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