snake oil

[Marc Horowitz]

>> If I just dreamed up a new gee whiz "new" cypher, should I post it to the
>> list for comments, or is this frowned on?  (As it happens, I happen to
>> have what I **think** is a new approach to cyphering, and the answer to this
>> question will determine wheter anyone hears about it or not...)

This list is, IMHO, for the discussion of privacy enforced by
technology in the hands of the user..  New approaches (like remailers
or money algorithms) are within the domain of this group.  New
encryption algorithms are better discussed in the newsgroup sci.crypt.

I admit that I'm a bit skeptical.  So far, every new encryption scheme
someone has proposed here has either been trivially defeated, or done
before.  I'm tired of showing how most schemes are reducible to a
one-time pad or codebook :-)

In any case, I think there are more experienced cryptographers on
sci.crypt than on this list, but I could be wrong.

		Marc