From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 00:21:34 +0800
To: 00043.an@edtec.com
Subject: Re: One-Time Pads as Attack Method
In-Reply-To: <199705101646.MAA21972@main.inetnow.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.970511161957.2922A-100000@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




> Is posting a TRANSFORM such as a 'OTP' that converts copyrighted material A
> into copyrighted material B a violation of anything, I wonder...  You could
> convert everybody's Internet Explorer into a ZIP file containing a setup
> and executable for Netscape 3.0!!

Technically, an OTP has a problem here because the two files, A and B, 
must be exactly the same size. Padding can solve this of course.

Legally though this is an interesting question: As I understand it (and I 
have only a very limited understanding of the law) copyrights make 
illegal the act of copying the material, rather than the act of owning 
it. Therefore, if I do A XOR B where A is say micro$oft access, and B is 
my transformation, and get C which is a copy of, say, micro$oft excel, I 
have commited no crime. Does anyone on here with a knowledge of the law 
have an opinion on this?

> >Do you think that Microsoft has a one-time-pad that will convert
> >Netscape 3.1 into Word for Windows?

Of course it need not even be an OTP, we could use a mapping to permute 
the bits in one file onto the bits in another. If this were illegal under 
current law, what would be illegal, the program, the owning of it, the 
act of using it to create the copyrighted software C????????????

        Datacomms Technologies data security
       Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
  Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org    
       Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
      Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85
     "Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"