Articles on RC5 and GOST in January 95 Dr Dobbs Journal
In the Jan 95 issue of Dr Dobbs Journal, you will find the following: An editorial on the public release of RC4 (without code). An article by me on GOST (with code). An article by Ron Rivest on RC5 (without code). Remember, you can export cryptographic source code in paper form. Bruce
On Dec 11, 5:25pm, Bruce Schneier wrote:
Remember, you can export cryptographic source code in paper form.
Now there's an interesting thought... Many of you will remember the heady days of the early 1980's, when it was customary for PC magazines to include substantial amounts of code in their pages (often 25% or so of the magazine). This all had to be typed in by hand, and especially in the case of BASIC programs (there was only BASIC in those days really, it was the lowest common demoninator) containing machine code, they would also almost always have checksums to make sure that what was typed in was correct. This was never a lot of fun. I did it a few times myself. That cured me for life from repeating the exercise. Around the mid 1980's a rather interesting device appeared. It was essentially an automated scanner for high-density barcodes. You photocopied the magazine page containing these 25 cm (or whatever) barcode strips, which you fed into the reader. It scanned the contents of the barcode, and voila, a working program. At least in theory. The downfall of this system is that the reader cost several hundred dollars, and almost nobody could afford them. It never quite caught on. Even so, I really wonder if the export of cryptography ON PAPER but in a machine-readable form would be in violation of ITAR? If anyone has one of these old scanner, it might very well be worth trying. Ian.
Ian Farquhar wrote:
Many of you will remember the heady days of the early 1980's, when it was customary for PC magazines to include substantial amounts of code in their pages (often 25% or so of the magazine). This all had to be typed in by ... Around the mid 1980's a rather interesting device appeared. It was essentially an automated scanner for high-density barcodes. You photocopied the magazine page containing these 25 cm (or whatever) barcode strips, which you fed into the reader. It scanned the contents of the barcode, and voila, a working program. At least in theory. The downfall of this system is that the reader cost several hundred dollars, and almost nobody could afford them. It never quite caught on.
"Cauzin Softstrips" was the product, as I recall. I wouldn't use the word "quite" in "It never quite caught on," except in irony, as I'm pretty sure essentially _no_ such machines were sold. Maybe a few, but not many more.
Even so, I really wonder if the export of cryptography ON PAPER but in a machine-readable form would be in violation of ITAR? If anyone has one of these old scanner, it might very well be worth trying.
We had this discusssion a while back, when Phil Karn was trying for an export license for Bruce's software. OCR recognition rates are already close to 100% for monospaced fonts like Courier (at least many of us see this...I have TypeReader and it does very well with such fonts), and could be made even higher. In my view, the whole export issue is a joke anyway. Anyone with access to Bruce's code could quite easily remail it, with or without first hiding the exact form by compressing, encrypting, or stegging it. That this hasn't happened--so far as we (or I) know--says more about other things than about the laws supposedly barring such export. I'm not saying it wouldn't be an interesting test case, though. Hard to imagine it happening. I expect the test case could come just as easily be printing up the code in Courier, or OCR2, and prominently putting "Insert this end into OCR machine" or somesuch....and then calling attention to this as one crosses the borders. (I'd guess the outgoing Customs inspection would be nonexistent, as usual, and that such an attempt to trigger a test case would be fruitless.) --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. Cypherpunks list: majordomo@toad.com with body message of only: subscribe cypherpunks. FAQ available at ftp.netcom.com in pub/tc/tcmay
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In list.cypherpunks, tcmay@netcom.com writes:
Around the mid 1980's a rather interesting device appeared. It was essentially an automated scanner for high-density barcodes.
"Cauzin Softstrips" was the product, as I recall. I wouldn't use the word "quite" in "It never quite caught on," except in irony, as I'm pretty sure essentially _no_ such machines were sold. Maybe a few, but not many more.
I remember the product, including the test strip printed in BYTE that caused a flurry of "what's this?" letters. I'm sure Tim is right about very few readers being sold. But I think that 2 other things influenced the Cauzin's demise. There was the steady drop in magnetic media prices that eroded the potential savings in storage on paper. But I think the more important event was that Cauzin was bought by Kodak. This was at a time when Kodak was getting into mag media pretty heavily (both computer disks and video tape). I always sort of assumed Kodak bought Cauzin to rid themselves of some competition. - -- Roy M. Silvernail [ ] roy@cybrspc.mn.org "Governments find it notoriously difficult to work with people that they cannot shoot." -- James A. Donald <jamesd@netcom.com> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.1 iQCVAwUBLuu96Rvikii9febJAQFy+AP/ZyutzrPSt9YiGxmGsX51lMWsOoU5giXU pGo8VhYDDZ3uIkR5PLPElMMgRfjVM7AMVcQr+3zxab2i+ihxr9fga7j2QqSnOGk9 pBXuDdrI84i7ChsmNzUxWtN2oTKg52cVxC+GNAmrY2mu25oJXTB6M/ntc+/mgk5L wMrHpx129sE= =rl8a -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Ian Farquhar writes:
Around the mid 1980's a rather interesting device appeared. It was essentially an automated scanner for high-density barcodes.
A recent mini-article in "WiReD" mentions a barcode-like encoding mechanism being promoted by (I think) Xerox. It's apparently denser than barcode and it survives copying well. | GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com> | | TAKE TWA TO CAIRO. ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX: | | (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |
participants (5)
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Ian Farquhar -
m5＠vail.tivoli.com -
roy＠cybrspc.mn.org -
schneier＠chinet.chinet.com -
tcmay＠netcom.com