Harvard mathematician creates 'provably unbreakable' code (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

    ____________________________________________________________________

           Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a
           smaller group must first understand it.

                                           "Stranger Suns"
                                           George Zebrowski

       The Armadillo Group       ,::////;::-.          James Choate
       Austin, Tx               /:'///// ``::>/|/      ravage at ssz.com
       www.ssz.com            .',  ||||    `/( e\      512-451-7087
                           -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'-
    --------------------------------------------------------------------

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 17:26:13 -0800 (PST)
From: Bram Cohen <bram at gawth.com>
To: hal at finney.org
Cc: Pete.Chown at skygate.co.uk, coderpunks at toad.com, crypt at bxa.doc.gov
Subject: Re: Harvard mathematician creates 'provably unbreakable' code

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001 hal at finney.org wrote:

> for i = 1 to m do
>   for j = 1 to n do
>     if j is an element of s then
>       R and S store alpha[j][i]
>   end for j
>   S and R set X[i] = xor of stored alpha[j][i] values (k of them)
>   S sends M[i] xor X[i]; R recovers M[i] by xoring with X[i]
> end for i

Interesting. Something I came up with may be relevant -

http://gawth.com/bram/essays/unrelated_xors.html

I explained this to Ian Goldberg, who agreed that both conjectures are
completely obvious, and also couldn't see a way of proving them.

If anyone could forward this around I'd much appreciate it - it seems like
worthwile work, but I haven't figured out how to even try to get it
published anywhere - even the front outright ignores submissions from
people with no academic affiliation.

-Bram Cohen

"Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"
                                        -- John Maynard Keynes