At 05:58 PM 2/21/01 -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, David Honig wrote:
1. look for appropriate headers and/or 2. convert to binary and measure the entropy of the sample. Nothing
written
by human hand comes close to pure noise.
But the orginal problem placed no constraints on the encryption used by the source.
I don't think the original poster intended rot13 to be acceptable. And this would be caught: plaintext ciphered with the former won't pass the entropy test. I like the idea, suggested by someone else, of checking digital signatures on the encrypted msgs since this can authenticate the crypto tool also, assuring that rot13 or DES isn't used. Though its more work for Mr. SMTP Host than simply measuring entropy. ....... "What company did you say you were from, Mr. Hewlett?" ---Walt Disney to Bill Hewlett eetimes 22.01.01 p 32