Cryptography-Digest Digest #836, Volume #10 Tue, 4 Jan 00 12:13:01 EST
Contents:
Most Rotors on a Cipher Machine (UBCHI2)
Re: Prime series instead (Re: Pi) (Paul Crowley)
Re: Prime series instead (Re: Pi) ("Tony T. Warnock")
Re: List of english words ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: Wagner et Al. ("John E. Kuslich")
Re: Wagner et Al. (Tom St Denis)
Re: trits from characters (SCOTT19U.ZIP_GUY)
Re: how good is RC4? (Tom St Denis)
Re: Prime series instead (Re: Pi) (Scott Fluhrer)
Re: How to pronounce "Vigenere"? (Quisquater)
Re: byte representation (Keith A Monahan)
Re: trits from characters (Mok-Kong Shen)
Re: How to pronounce "Vigenere"? (Anton Stiglic)
Re: On documentation of algorithms (Paul Koning)
Re: How to pronounce "Vigenere"? (Mok-Kong Shen)
Re: How to pronounce "Vigenere"? ("Zuldare")
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (UBCHI2)
Subject: Most Rotors on a Cipher Machine
Date: 04 Jan 2000 15:12:50 GMT
Can someone state which historical rotor based machine had the greatest number
of rotors? How many rotors were on it?
------------------------------
From: Paul Crowley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Prime series instead (Re: Pi)
Date: 4 Jan 2000 11:40:11 -0000
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> Tony Warnock
>
> > It converges. There is a theorem that states that
> > if lim |a(n)| goes to zero
> > as n goes to infinity then the alternating
> > sum a(1)-a(2)+a(3)... converges.
>
> Well, not quite; the theorem also requires that
> |a[n]| is decreasing. For example, consider the
> sequence:
> 1/2, 0, 1/3, 0, 1/4, 0, 1/5, 0, 1/6, 0, ...
There is another theorem which states that finding the sum of an
infinite sequence is trickier than you think. I'm trying to remember
one of the famous example where you can change the sum by re-ordering
the numbers in the sequence...
--
__
\/ o\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Got a Linux strategy? \ /
/\__/ Paul Crowley http://www.hedonism.demon.co.uk/paul/ /~\
------------------------------
From: "Tony T. Warnock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Prime series instead (Re: Pi)
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 08:18:24 -0700
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Paul Crowley wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> > Tony Warnock
> >
> > > It converges. There is a theorem that states that
> > > if lim |a(n)| goes to zero
> > > as n goes to infinity then the alternating
> > > sum a(1)-a(2)+a(3)... converges.
> >
> > Well, not quite; the theorem also requires that
> > |a[n]| is decreasing. For example, consider the
> > sequence:
> > 1/2, 0, 1/3, 0, 1/4, 0, 1/5, 0, 1/6, 0, ...
>
> There is another theorem which states that finding the sum of an
> infinite sequence is trickier than you think. I'm trying to remember
> one of the famous example where you can change the sum by re-ordering
> the numbers in the sequence...
> --
> __
> \/ o\ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Got a Linux strategy? \ /
> /\__/ Paul Crowley http://www.hedonism.demon.co.uk/paul/ /~\
Yeah, I was a bit sloppy.
Any conditionally convergent sequence, that is one for which sum(|x(n)|)
diverges but which sum(x(n)) converges may be rearranged into a
convergent sequence with any sum desired. Basically the greedy algorithm
works. You add positive terms until over the target, then negative terms
until under; then alternat these steps.
1+1/2+1/3+1/4... diverges but 1-1/2+1/3-1/4 is Ln(2) (I think.)
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: List of english words
Date: 4 Jan 2000 15:29:03 GMT
Greetings all,
Just becoming interested in cryptography (but with a background in
psycholinguistics) so I hope this isn't old hat to you all...
John Lupton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Can someone tell me where on the web I can find a list of words in english.
I want to do some frequency analysis on n-graphs (i.e. mono-, di-, tri-,
tetra-) and words with certain n-graph patterns too.
Ideally I'm looking for a text file with every word from aardvark to zulu.
Bill Unruh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> replied:
Word lists are dominated by very rare words. Remember that the standard
"working vocabulary" is about 2000 words and of those maybe 10 are used
over 50% of the time. Ie, using frequency analysis of word lists is
useless if applied to actual text. It is maybe useful only if applied to
wordlists.
I'm adding:
several researchers have already compiled word-lists with frequencies, the
most notable of these is the brown corpus (Francis, W. & Kucera, H. 196?).
But it is a bit outdated if you are looking at the word frequencies. Also,
the n-gram frequencies you want have been computed in English and several
other languages. Search in linguistics and psycholinguistic literature to
find relevant articles, or do a search on the web for "corpora linguistics"
or somesuch. You also might want to try the linguistic data consortium
which has compiled several nice searchable corpora of written and spoken
info in many languages, but I know they charge for access to their corpora.
For a quick and dirty frequency-based word list many people just use standard
unix tools (grep, sort, wc...) and traffic from newsgroups which can be
tailored to the domain of interest (i.e. alt.poodles.bark.bark.bark probably
isn't necessary for relevant word counts for decrypting anything that is
known to be military information). If you do decide to create your own n-gram
frequency tables, remember (as Mr. Unruh said) that you have to take word
frequency into account when calculating the n-gram frequency.
==============================================================================
Breton Bienvenue e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology phone: (716)645-3650 x377
SUNY at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY 14260
==============================================================================
------------------------------
From: "John E. Kuslich" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Wagner et Al.
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 08:48:28 -0700
All of memory associated with any Windows executable and its associated
DLL's is available to anyone who can execute the software in question.
There is no hiding of keys under Windows. This is a persistent myth.
The Windows API allows complete access to anything that happens "under
the hood". If one has physical access to a computer or has installed
the appropriate back door, then everything is available for viewing and
even modification.
One can use obfuscation to make the job of finding sensitive information
slightly more difficult; but, in the end Windows will serve up the
required data to a persistent hacker.
Setting of hooks is one way to gain access to processes not started
under the controlling process. If one can start the process himself,
there are simpler ways to gain access to everything.
Those who have not used debuggers and have not written applications for
Windows at the assembler level may have difficulty appreciating these
truths. Nevertheless, Windows is and always will be insecure at a
fundamental level.
JK http://www.crak.com
John Enright wrote:
>
> Tom St Denis wrote in message <84nicv$l70$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>
> <snip>
>
> >Now let me ask you, how would you intercept a windows message? Via a
>
> <snip>
>
> Tom, I've never done it, but Windows message interception should be easy.
> One can write a simple program to do it; no trojan necessary. ;) I also
> haven't looked at your code, but if you are sending sensitive key
> information in this manner a hack program to extract the data would be
> fairly easy. It appears that Win32 Hooks could do the job. From the Win32
> docs:
>
> Hooks provide powerful capabilities for Windows-based applications. These
> applications can use hooks to:
>
> Process or modify all messages meant for all the dialog boxes, message
> boxes, scroll bars, or menus for an application (WH_MSGFILTER).
>
> Process or modify all messages meant for all the dialog boxes, message
> boxes, scroll bars, or menus for the system (WH_SYSMSGFILTER).
>
> Process or modify all messages (of any type) for the system whenever a
> GetMessage or a PeekMessage function is called (WH_GETMESSAGE).
>
> Process or modify all messages (of any type) whenever a SendMessage function
> is called (WH_CALLWNDPROC).
>
> ...
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong.
--
John E. Kuslich
Password Recovery Software
CRAK Software
http://www.crak.com
------------------------------
From: Tom St Denis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Wagner et Al.
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 16:10:56 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"John Enright" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Tom St Denis wrote in message <84nicv$l70$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
>
> <snip>
>
> >Now let me ask you, how would you intercept a windows message? Via a
>
> <snip>
>
> Tom, I've never done it, but Windows message interception should be
easy.
> One can write a simple program to do it; no trojan necessary. ;) I
also
> haven't looked at your code, but if you are sending sensitive key
> information in this manner a hack program to extract the data would be
> fairly easy. It appears that Win32 Hooks could do the job. From the
Win32
> docs:
>
> Hooks provide powerful capabilities for Windows-based applications.
These
> applications can use hooks to:
>
> Process or modify all messages meant for all the dialog boxes, message
> boxes, scroll bars, or menus for an application (WH_MSGFILTER).
>
> Process or modify all messages meant for all the dialog boxes, message
> boxes, scroll bars, or menus for the system (WH_SYSMSGFILTER).
>
> Process or modify all messages (of any type) for the system whenever a
> GetMessage or a PeekMessage function is called (WH_GETMESSAGE).
>
> Process or modify all messages (of any type) whenever a SendMessage
function
> is called (WH_CALLWNDPROC).
>
> ...
>
> Please correct me if I'm wrong.
You are missing my point. I never said trojans [defn = any program
that's sole purpose is to defeat security] can't totally break
Peekboo. I whole heartedly agree trojans can break Peekboo. ... oh and
PGP, and Scramdisk, and ....
The best solution is to avoid getting them. Don't go to websites you
don't trust. Turn off all 'features' like java/activex and don't run
attachements... that's the best you can do.
Tom
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (SCOTT19U.ZIP_GUY)
Subject: Re: trits from characters
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 17:19:06 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(wtshaw) wrote:
>Here is a demo function that converts come characters to trits. The code
>characters list can be easily extended to whatever you care to include.
>
>A little experience shows me that text reduces to about three trits per
>character on average, which means it could be easily encoded into a set of
>26 characters of three trits each; there need not be a 000 equivalent
>since it never shows up. If you are doing nice mixing things with the
>trits, then you need to pick a 27th character.
>
>For those addicted to classic format of the related ciphers, use X's
>instead of 0's; there is no secret square.
>
>Hope I made no errors...but it's possible.
>
Actually much more is possible see the example below
file cond3.txt follows this would be a 3 charatcter condition file
0000 31 32 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . *120*
number of bytes is 3
file cond27.txt follows this would be a 27 character condition file
0000 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F 50 *ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP*
0010 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 20 . . . . . *QRSTUVWXYZ *
number of bytes is 27
file 27t3.txt follows
result of
"h2comsf.exe cond27.txt cond27.fof cond27.txt"
"h2uncsf.exe cond27.fof 27t3.txt cond3.txt"
0000 32 30 31 31 31 30 31 31 30 31 30 32 31 31 32 31 *2011101101021121*
0010 30 32 31 32 30 32 32 32 32 31 31 32 31 30 32 31 *0212022221121021*
0020 32 30 31 32 32 32 30 31 32 30 32 30 32 32 32 32 *2012220120202222*
0030 31 31 32 31 30 32 31 32 30 31 32 32 32 30 31 32 *1121021201222012*
0040 30 30 32 30 32 30 30 32 32 32 32 31 30 32 31 32 *0020200222210212*
0050 32 32 30 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . *2200*
number of bytes is 84
The above is the alphabet and space converted to a trit
stream.
Take the file below which is mess1.txt
0000 54 52 49 54 53 20 54 4F 20 54 52 49 54 53 20 41 *TRITS TO TRITS A*
0010 4E 44 20 46 52 4F 4D 20 54 52 49 54 53 20 46 4F *ND FROM TRITS FO*
0020 52 20 54 52 49 54 53 20 . . . . . . . . *R TRITS *
number of bytes is 40
convert it to trits using static conditional huffman compression
"h2comsf.exe mess1.txt mess1.fof cond27.txt"
"h2uncsf.exe mess1.fof mess1t.txt cond3.txt"
below is mess1t.txt
0000 31 32 32 32 31 30 32 32 32 32 31 30 32 32 31 32 *1222102222102212*
0010 30 32 30 30 31 32 32 32 32 32 30 32 30 30 31 32 *0200122222020012*
0020 32 32 31 30 32 32 32 32 31 30 32 32 31 32 30 32 *2210222210221202*
0030 30 30 32 30 31 32 31 32 31 32 31 30 30 30 31 32 *0020121212100012*
0040 31 31 30 32 32 32 30 30 32 32 30 30 30 31 32 32 *1102220022000122*
0050 32 31 30 32 32 32 32 31 30 32 32 31 32 30 32 30 *2102222102212020*
0060 30 31 32 31 32 32 30 31 30 32 32 30 30 31 32 32 *0121220102200122*
0070 32 31 30 32 32 32 32 31 30 32 32 31 32 30 32 30 *2102222102212020*
0080 30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *0*
number of bytes is 129
convert it to trits using adaptive condtional huffman compression
"h2comaf.exe mess1.txt mess1a.fof cond27.txt"
"h2uncsf.exe mess1a.fof mess1at.txt cond3.txt"
below is mess1at.txt
0000 31 32 32 32 30 31 32 32 31 30 32 32 32 31 31 30 *1222012210222110*
0010 31 31 32 31 30 32 31 32 31 31 31 31 31 30 32 32 *1121021211111022*
0020 31 31 31 32 32 31 30 32 32 32 31 31 30 32 31 31 *1112210222110211*
0030 31 31 30 30 30 31 31 30 31 32 31 31 31 32 31 32 *1100011012111212*
0040 32 31 31 31 30 31 31 30 32 31 32 32 32 30 32 31 *2111011021222021*
0050 30 32 32 31 31 31 32 30 31 32 31 30 30 32 31 32 *0221112012100212*
0060 32 32 30 32 31 30 32 32 31 31 31 30 . . . . *220210221110*
number of bytes is 108
The routines above can be used for any base conversions
in the range of 2 character to 256 characters.
so one could easily compress and convert to binary files
that one could then encrypt. And convert back to character
set of choice. As always this conversations are bijective
or unadulterated whatever.
These routines and more are available at my web stite
with the source code. Also pointers to where one can get
my crypto. Which soon will be updated with newer versions.
As always they will not be wimpy AES knock offs but far
superior crypto.
David A. Scott
--
SCOTT19U.ZIP NOW AVAILABLE WORLD WIDE
http://www.jim.com/jamesd/Kong/scott19u.zip
Scott famous encryption website NOT FOR WIMPS
http://members.xoom.com/ecil/index.htm
Scott rejected paper for the ACM
http://members.xoom.com/ecil/dspaper.htm
Scott famous Compression Page WIMPS allowed
http://members.xoom.com/ecil/compress.htm
**NOTE EMAIL address is for SPAMERS***
I leave you with this final thought from President Bill Clinton:
"The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the
truth."
------------------------------
From: Tom St Denis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: how good is RC4?
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 16:19:55 GMT
In article <84qm44$g2d$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Yes RC4 is simple, but it's very easy to make a
> little mistake and get it wrong. Tom should
> know after the number of wrong RC4s he's posted.
Well in my code I double check it matches the code from AC. But when I
post I was going off the top of my head.
> > init_key()
> > {
> > x = y = 0;
> > for i = 0 to 255
> > s[i] = i;
> >
> > for i = 0 to 255
> > y = (y + key[i] + s[i]) mod 256
> > tmp = s[y]; s[y] = s[i]; s[i] = tmp;
> >
> > <dump some>
> > }
> >
> > get_rc4_byte()
> > {
> > x = (x + 1) mod 256;
> > y = (s[x] + y) mod 256;
> > tmp = s[x]; s[x] = s[y]; s[y] = tmp;
> >
> > return s[(s[x] + s[y]) mod 256];
> > }
> >
> > < this is of couse pseudo-C code... >
>
> Replace "key[i]" with "key[i mod key_length]" and
> place "y=0" as the last line in init_key(). Then
> I _think_ it's correct - but I recommend working
> from widely-used specifications or tested code.
Technically you don't have todo 'mod key_length' if you stretch the key
to 256 bytes... as was shown in AC. I agree in reality it would be
done the other way... but who says this is reality?
> > It's not a TM, and call it RC4.
>
> As other pointed out, RC4 is a trademark.
I think I understand now. So RC4 is a trademark? Difficult concept...
Cheers,
Tom
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Scott Fluhrer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Prime series instead (Re: Pi)
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 16:37:28 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
"Tony T. Warnock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>"John E. Gwyn" wrote:
>
>> "NFN NMI L." wrote:
>> > The summation of the reciprocals of all the primes is infinite. Who
>> > knows what happens when you have alternating subtraction and addition?
>>
>> I think it still diverges, but I don't have a proof.
>
>It converges. There is a theorem that states that if lim |a(n)| goes to zero
>as n goes to infinity then the alternating sum a(1)-a(2)+a(3)... converges.
>
<NITPICK> That's not true, as if a(1)=1/1, a(2)=-1/2, a(3)=1/3, a(4)=-1/4, ...
then the limit goes to zero, but the sum diverges. You need the additional
condition that a(n)>=0
</NITPICK>
--
poncho
------------------------------
From: Quisquater <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How to pronounce "Vigenere"?
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 17:53:19 +0100
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> > Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
> "Vigenere"
> > (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
> >
>
> I'm a Brit living and working in Paris so I can just ask my collegue
> sitting next to me. When he read it outload it sounded like
> "Vee-jen-air" (in French you pronounce "i" as "ee" and "g" as "j" and
> more often than not ignore the last letter of the word)
>
> Neil.
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
IMHO this one is the right one ...
(what about pronouncing "Rijndael" from AES?).
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Keith A Monahan)
Subject: Re: byte representation
Date: 4 Jan 2000 16:36:44 GMT
Yes, eight binary ones is 255 for an unsigned 8bit byte. Do you have
a scientific calculator? Perhaps 'calc' in windows95/98/nt ? Be warned
that there are other representations like two's complement which does not
stick to the above rule because it can involve signed bytes.
Converting binary -> decimal is easy, the easiest way I can think of is
to write 8 numbers down on a piece of paper and write a 1 and a 0 underneath
the positions.
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
And then you add the positions which have a one underneath them, so
128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 255
Example 2:
128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1
would be
128 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 1 = 185
and all of this is assuming a most significant bit first setup which is
fairly common.
Keith
mike cardeiro ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
: In article
: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
: Matthew Montchalin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: > Can you describe your ciphersaber program? What microprocessor does
: it
: > execute on?
: the explanation of the program can be found here:
: http://ciphersaber.gurus.com/faq.html#getrc4
: and would be run on linux using perl. it seems like a pretty simple
: program but i want to make sure im getting everything right in my head
: is 255 and 11111111 the same thing to a computer.
: mike cardeiro
: Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
: Before you buy.
------------------------------
From: Mok-Kong Shen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: trits from characters
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 17:52:34 +0100
John Savard wrote:
>
> Unless 00 is used to stand for the space character, it won't show up
> either using this Morse code approach. You should really be using a
> straddling checkerboard with the prefix property and all three trits
> for better removal of redundancy. That is, something like:
>
> 00 E 120 S 211 C 2212 K
> 01 T 121 R 212 Y 2220 X
> 02 A 122 D 2200 F 2221 J
> 10 O 200 L 2201 G 22220 Q
> 110 I 201 U 2202 P 22221 Z
> 111 H 202 M 2210 B 22222 .
> 112 N 210 W 2211 V
While I count on a fair probability that using bases other than
2 or powers of 2 can indeed be advantageous, I am yet ignorant of
concrete examples showing their merits. Hence the stupid questions:
Doesn't the above code results in a fairly large expansion factor
of the text file? Why isn't it an optimal procedure for crypto
purposes to map a given alphabet to the next larger power of 2 or,
when needed, using homophones to map it to a higher power of 2?
Certainly, using an uncommon base has the positive effect of forcing
the analyst to do something 'uncommon', thus hopefully reducing his
chance of success, but I am afraid that that alone might not be
sufficient justification for doing that and that tradeoffs, if any,
should also be considered. Thanks.
M. K. Shen
------------------------------
From: Anton Stiglic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How to pronounce "Vigenere"?
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 11:52:15 -0500
==============8DE9D431A6B57FE1C753D04B
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Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Quisquater wrote:
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> >
> > > Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
> > "Vigenere"
> > > (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
> > >
> >
> > I'm a Brit living and working in Paris so I can just ask my collegue
> > sitting next to me. When he read it outload it sounded like
> > "Vee-jen-air" (in French you pronounce "i" as "ee" and "g" as "j" and
> > more often than not ignore the last letter of the word)
> >
> > Neil.
> >
> > Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> > Before you buy.
>
> IMHO this one is the right one ...
> (what about pronouncing "Rijndael" from AES?).
I don't agree with the -jen- part. "ge" is not exactly pronounced like
english -je- (but I don't realy know how to explain it, it's kind of like
-she-, but not exactly that either) and the "n" goes with the end (-air-).
So it would be something like "Vee-she-nair", but not exactly... :)
Anton
==============8DE9D431A6B57FE1C753D04B
Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii
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<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">
<html>
Quisquater wrote:
<blockquote TYPE=CITE>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
<br>>
<br>> > Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
<br>> "Vigenere"
<br>> > (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
<br>> >
<br>>
<br>> I'm a Brit living and working in Paris so I can just ask my collegue
<br>> sitting next to me. When he read it outload it sounded like
<br>> "Vee-jen-air" (in French you pronounce "i" as "ee" and "g" as "j"
and
<br>> more often than not ignore the last letter of the word)
<br>>
<br>> Neil.
<br>>
<br>> Sent via Deja.com <a href="http://www.deja.com/">http://www.deja.com/</a>
<br>> Before you buy.
<p>IMHO this one is the right one ...
<br>(what about pronouncing "Rijndael" from AES?).</blockquote>
I don't agree with the -jen- part. "ge" is not exactly pronounced
like
<br>english -je- (but I don't realy know how to explain it,
it's kind of like
<br>-she-, but not exactly that either) and the "n" goes with the end (-air-).
<br>So it would be something like "Vee-she-nair", but not exactly... :)
<p>Anton
<br>
<pre></pre>
</html>
==============8DE9D431A6B57FE1C753D04B==
------------------------------
From: Paul Koning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: On documentation of algorithms
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 11:48:59 -0500
Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
>
> Paul Koning wrote:
> >
>
> > Ditto with cryptography. Yes, a reasonable teacher can explain
> > how DES works. But to understand why DES has good security is
> > vastly harder. And then there's RSA. If you don't know the
> > basic number theory on which it's based, you cannot possibly
> > understand why it works no matter how good the teacher is.
>
> I have attempted to make a point that crypto is to be treated a
> bit different because of its nature and its social significance.
So what? Its social nature or whatever doesn't affect the
level of math skills you need to do work in this field.
> Incidentally, DES that you mentioned is a very good example. The
> design rationales of DES have not yet been fully officially disclosed
> till the present day, if I don't err. Differential analysis, that
> is applicable to DES, was known to the designers of DES but has
> to be re-discovered decades later by Biham and Shamir. So one
> probably sees how easy one could proceed with one's study no matter
> how smart one and one's teachers are.
I can't understand that last sentence.
It seems to me that differential analysis and Einstein's work on
relativity are analogous in a way. A good teacher (such as Einstein)
can explain them in a superficial way well enough that interested
outsiders such as I can nod and say "yup, yeah, sure, I guess that
all makes sense". That's fun in a way. It doesn't really do much
for you, though, because that level of explanation and understanding
in no way qualifies the hearer to DO work on that topic, or to verify
the correctness of what was just explained.
paul
------------------------------
From: Mok-Kong Shen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How to pronounce "Vigenere"?
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 18:12:31 +0100
In scientific circles people seem to be tolerable enough towards poor
pronounciations and slight modifications wrpt orthography, as long
as there is no unambiguity. ('Wouldn't a rose by any other name
smell just as sweet?') The librarians do have transcription
systems to do cataloging of foregn literatures, but there exist
more than one such, as far as I am aware.
M. K. Shen
------------------------------
From: "Zuldare" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: How to pronounce "Vigenere"?
Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 17:07:52 GMT
No, it wouldn't.
John E. Gwyn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> Michael Groh wrote:
> > Would somebody provide me with the phonetic pronunciation of
> > "Vigenere" (as an English-speaking person might pronounce it).
>
> Wouldn't it be better to pronounce it like a French-speaking person?
------------------------------
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