From: Ian Farquhar <ifarqhar@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au> I was compiling a list of crypto algorithms the other night, trying to produce a library of description documents for the algorithms, and an interesting but idle question hit me: what ever happened to RC1, RC3, MD1, MD3, A1, A2, A4, A6, and A7? Just wondering if anyone knows... Ian. Any reason why you left out A5 above? :-) ...
From gtoal Mon Jun 20 14:35:50 1994 To: cypherpunks@toad.com Subject: Didn't anyone note the A5 posting? X-Phone: +44 31 662 0366 X-Fax: +44 31 662 4678 X-Organisation: An Teallach Limited Status: RO
Didn't anyone notice that someone posted a putative source code for the secret A5 algorithm as used in GSM phones? (It was on sci.crypt xposted to uk.telecom, on Friday). Seems someone was going to give a talk on ways of hacking the algorithm, at some university, and he got stomped on by CGHQ. So another guy has come out in sympathy and posted his reconstruction of the algorithm in C as reverse engineered from a hardware description he received in a plain brown envelope! This is *significantly* more of a coup on the net that the NSA handbook. Now, all I need is for you guys to explain coherently *why* it's a good coup and what the political implications are, and I'll feed the story to the UK press. (I don't think anyone here has it yet...) G