I just finished reading the contents of the VME web-site. I have a few things to say. :) First of all the web-site blows elephant cock. You would think with guys smart enough to come up with "unbreakable encryption", they would at least be able to design a good site. Second, they make a big deal about how fast it is and how it can encrypt *ONE WHOLE FAT MEGABYTE A MINUTE*! Big whoop. Hope nobody wants to encrypt anything useful besides teensy weensy e-mails, 'cause you're gonna grow old before it finishes encrypting. Third, what the hell good is it if nobody can see the source code? It's well known that a trademark of bad cryptographic systems are the ones that rely on secrecy of the algorithm. Some happy little geek in his college computer lab is going to spend the time needed to reverse engineer the program, which they claim is "impossible to reverse engineer". Well, they didn't say it was "impossible", but they did say that the code is so complicated that nobody would be able to understand it if they ever did reverse engineer it. Bullshit. I know a 15 year old kid who actually has the patience to go through a few thousand lines of assembly code just to see what a program really does. Fourth, as someone else pointed out, the description of the algorithm is filled with words like "revolutionary" and "super-fast", etc. The descriptions of how the program works are so vague and general that it hards to believe they even have a running program. The description of the encryption sounds all very pretty, but I seriously wonder if that's the extent of the security. Almost like having a gold plated sign on your door saying "Keep out!" and then leaving your door unlocked. Fifth, their "challenge" to these major corportions merely states that they gave IBM, MS, and Netscape this big challenge to crack the system, but it never actually says the companies took up the offer and are actively trying to crack it. How's this one? "Microsoft, Netscape, and IBM!! I challenge you to crack my version of the Caesar Cipher!" There. I can now claim that I have challenged all the big corps to crack my crypto scheme. Challenging a big company doesn't prove a thing. Anyway, that's my rant and rave. Just as a small side note, if you would like to see some good examples of Madison Avenue at work then just visit this web-site: http://www.meganet.com

News report Nov 7, 97:

AT&T, Hewlett Packard, Intel Corporation, Dell Computers, and many other leading computer corporations have been added to the challenge list by Meganet Corporation. The challenge started last week with Bill Gates, now some of his peers have an opportunity to validate or discredit the bold claim that Meganet's VME (Virtual Matrix Encryption) is totally unbreakable.

Unbreakable encryption is the only answer to security in our electronic world. This is graphically illustrated by the recent report from the National Security Agency reporting the open market availability of a $10 chip that can test up to 200 million keys per second. The 56-bit key, government and banking standard, can be compromised in twelve (12) seconds with brute force using ASIC (Application-specific Integrated Circuits) chips.

Meganet has the answer with its new VME (Virtual Matrix Encryption). The impenetrable VME also has extreme speed, much faster than any existing program available today.

Major computer companies are already starting discussions to acquire the rights to market this incredible new data encryption system. More information about this exciting new technology can be found at: www.meganet.com

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Hmm, wonder if it has impenetrable GAK and CAK options.