On 09/06/2013 05:58 PM, Jon Callas wrote:
We know as a mathematical theorem that a block cipher with a back door *is* a public-key system. It is a very, very, very valuable thing, and suggests other mathematical secrets about hitherto unknown ways to make fast, secure public key systems.
I've seen this assertion several times in this thread, but I cannot help thinking that it depends on what *kind* of backdoor you're talking about, because there are some cases in which as a crypto amateur I simply cannot see how the construction of an asymmetric cipher could be accomplished. As an example of a backdoor that doesn't obviously permit an asymmetric-cipher construction, consider a broken cipher that has 128-bit symmetric keys; but one of these keys (which one depends on an IV in some non-obvious way that's known to the attacker) can be used to decrypt any message regardless of the key used to encrypt it. However, it is not a valid encryption key; no matter what you encrypt with it you get the same ciphertext. There's a second key (also known to the attacker, given the IV) which is also an invalid key; it has the property that no matter what you encrypt or decrypt, you get the same result (a sort of hash on the IV). How would someone construct an asymmetric cipher from this? Or is there some mathematical reason why such a beast as the hypothetical broken cipher I describe, could not exist? Bear _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com http://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography