Below is a message I posted to the SpyKing mailing list a few months back when Jaws decided to spam the list with their crypto "challange".

From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@invweb.net> Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 14:41:24 -0500 To: SpyKing <spyking@con2.com> In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980601033850.0355c350@admin.con2.com> Subject: POST RE: $5,000,000 Encryption contest

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <3.0.3.32.19980601033850.0355c350@admin.con2.com>, on 06/01/98 at 02:38 AM, SpyKing <spyking@con2.com> said:

15)From: SpyKing@thecodex.com Subject: $5,000,000 "Break the Code" Encryption Contest

Friday May 29, 3:00 pm Eastern Time Company Press Release SOURCE: JAWS Technologies Inc.

JAWS Launches $5,000,000 ``Break the Code'' Encryption Contest

<sigh> Yet another Snake-oil post. Such challenges like this are really meaningless and are designed as a publicity stunt to gain some free press rather than as a legitimate test of the strength of the algorithms involved. The *only* way to test the security of an algorithm is through a process of peer-review of the source code. Until JAWS Technologies decides to go through this process I would stay far away from this and any other products they may produce. It seems quite clear that they have little to no understanding of the cryptology & security fields. I don't know what it is about the list but it seems that we must endure these snake-oil posts on a periodic basis. While I have replied here to many of these snake-oil advertisements I have yet to see one of these companies post a rebuttal (to the list or privately). I have submitted a copy of the Snake-Oil FAQ to SpyKing requesting that he publish it to the list (it's a little long so I don't want to post it directly). It can also be found at: http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/snake-oil-faq.html Security & Encryption are the big buzz-words in the computer industry and many companies are looking to cash-in on it. Be very wary of Johnny Come Lately's who overnight become cryptology "experts". - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii/pgp.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: I love running Windows! NOT! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a-sha1 Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNXNVXo9Co1n+aLhhAQHr5gP/aghoKztlVP6EjX0FU2v5rkBdu5FbyEWR 6aR/DdOvVYphIIQMk1O1Twy7ZasVUW/dSBPl7uT1/6yfw/NzSonyztmw+WR5d4lg rWOZ8Y1JjbXvLzH3RzA+LXZbShZ/Z5Smdb0yybvldHogo8pYDNeeJ5ZtMJuSgYfI VkoA4SFBDoY= =0m9E -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Tag-O-Matic: You're throwing it all out the Windows! ----------------------------------------------------- -- End of forwarded message ----------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: If at first you don't succeed, work for Microsoft.