At 10:32 AM 2/29/96 -0800, Alan Olsen wrote:

Here is the problem... I am looking for texts on the breaking of cyphers. (I want to show him WHY the cypher is insecure and not just say "<scottish accent>It's crap!</Scottish accent>".) I have done a couple of searches and have come up fairly dry.

Some of Friedman's instruction manuals from the (pre?)WW2 days have been declassified. When I was down at Computer Literacy Bookshops (408/435-1118) in San Jose, they had 5 or 6 titles on codebreaking. Applied Cryptography talks about some more modern attacks, such as meet in the middle. Starting from the references and going to a good technical library might produce some information. Good Luck - Bill ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bill Frantz | The CDA means | Periwinkle -- Computer Consulting (408)356-8506 | lost jobs and | 16345 Englewood Ave. frantz@netcom.com | dead teenagers | Los Gatos, CA 95032, USA