$1 Million Code Crack

[Anonymous]

Onn Fri, 22 Aug 1997, John Young apparently forwarded from: "$treet
Journal, August 22, 1997, p. A7A.":

>    On the bright side, cryptologists agree that the
>    decades-old encryption method that Crypto-Logic is claiming
>    to use -- called a "one-time pad" -- is theoretically
>    unbreakable. Each "pad" has a set of uniquely random
>    digital symbols that are coded to the actual message. The
>    recipient uses the same symbols to decrypt the message. The
>    pads are used only once.

ROTFL.  (Well, not literally, but smiling.)  The "How it works" link on
their site is broken :-), so what they're basically saying is "here is
some encrypted text, I bet you can't crack it."

----- UP
-----??daU?????dr1wEFssYNOgvLDiCyZ296C51VPUo9Mi0BIHMnZTSveVPXb?02G
47ECGIA2UoZgy0Kl!?91zW9SqF05kDlR!fYDPbbP9hH8J0CDLDrFfO3N7CxVur?QJ
o22aPgHyUmFpdbg7G!iQSZaHAOELipdS?m7KzGmxylN!kd2otaKISSRilW5HV00221
!jRTYbYOsb9fFpzbxRGeUjvozbviGE00rO?UdhzQ04aPV9ZoB0eJl0o6gA3YJuivVPPyr
V6jF3dYhDEba9o4oO1oDaGxRoKEhNEPtGm4UxWxCriUcUEsJRfb7bIXhdwMcW5g
CHd7ezbbXO4KD3IWPa67EgoMg42aiRiVtIuhu!So!dRW8lMVOhHx68Co?TPAm7dq
dGiGcv1lVheiwX3fpxxy3rMIMpEV-q3s9OF----- End -----

Idiots.

Saying that one-time pads are secure is meaningless.  Their web site
doesn't even mention key exchange.

As the Preface to Advanced Cryptography (www.counterpane.com) says,

% If I take a letter, lock it in a safe, hide the safe somewhere in
% New York, and then tell you to read the letter, that's not
% security. That's obscurity. On the other hand, if I take a letter
% and lock it in a safe, and then give you the safe along with the
% design specifications of the safe and a hundred identical safes with
% their combinations so that you and the world's best safecrackers can
% study the locking mechanism--and you still can't open the safe and
% read the letter, that's security.

I'm sure everybody here already knew this, but anybody with a million
bucks and no clues at all deserves to be kicked.

>    "Anyone who says their system is
>    bulletproof is either a liar or stupid," says Winn
>    Schwartau, a Largo, Fla., security expert.

I must disagree... they could be a liar _and_ stupid.

>    Mr. Neeley admits his integrity is on the line. "If I'm
>    wrong," he notes, "we're out of business."

Somebody ought to forward this thread to his creditors...

::Boots