From: J. Michael Diehl <mdiehl@triton.unm.edu>
Date: Sat, 10 Jul 93 00:35:40 PDT
To: eichin@cygnus.com (Mark Eichin)
Subject: Re: encrypted email software
In-Reply-To: <9307092304.AA14157@cygnus.com>
Message-ID: <9307100735.AA09015@triton.unm.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


According to Mark Eichin:
> 
> 	The only "backdoor" concept I've heard which had a technical
> basis behind it was a few years back, when some researcher figured out
> a way to *produce* S-boxes with particular types of holes, and
> concluded that it was impossible to identify if the holes where there
> or not unless you knew the precise formulation... I think it even had
> a two-of-three challenge, ie, published 3 sets of s-boxes, one or two
> of which were "trapped" in this way, as a challenge for people to find
> methods of locating them. (The technical basis stops there -- the
> psychological or political question that follows is "did NSA/IBM know
> about this technique? Assuming they did, did they choose the s-boxes
> with or without holes?")

Could someone tell me what an s-box is?  Thanx in advance.
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