On 21 Jul 96 at 6:03, The Deviant wrote:

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I've written a short "Snake Oil FAQ" below. It's incomplete and needs some work (adding a few definitions, rewording, aesthetic formatting, etc.), so think of it as a 'beta' FAQ (please don't [..] Looks very nicely done. I think you pretty much covered it... but...

Thanks.

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Be wary of marketing gimmicks related to "if you can crack our software" contests.

Even the best cryptographers and security professionals have done this. RSA did it with their Public Key system, which took 20+ years to break.

Note the words "marketing gimmicks". The $100 reward isn't a gimmick in the same way as "we'll give you our company" or "we'll give you five free copies of our software". But yes, that sentence could be reworded differently.

Throughout history, many security mechanisms, even the best ones, including Cyphers, Locks, Firewalls, etc. have been known to go as far as to offer prizes (some extremely high, upwards of a million dollars, some as low as RSA's famous $100 prize)

I think that this one really is just a bit too broad.

Oddly enough, RSA's RC2/RC4 is also an exception to the proprietary algorithm warning, (some would dispute that), so that section needs some minor rewriting. *sigh* I'll work on it. Thanks, Rob --- No-frills sig. Befriend my mail filter by sending a message with the subject "send help" Key-ID: 5D3F2E99 1996/04/22 wlkngowl@unix.asb.com (root@magneto) AB1F4831 1993/05/10 Deranged Mutant <wlkngowl@unix.asb.com> Send a message with the subject "send pgp-key" for a copy of my key.