1993-05-12 - The Halting Problem

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From: peb@PROCASE.COM
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Message Hash: 1b1b912294d8294f43a68cfafdcb03f4b5be7225976483d478496454ab8da33a
Message ID: <9305121900.AA09630@banff>
Reply To: N/A
UTC Datetime: 1993-05-12 19:00:25 UTC
Raw Date: Wed, 12 May 93 12:00:25 PDT

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From: peb@PROCASE.COM
Date: Wed, 12 May 93 12:00:25 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: The Halting Problem
Message-ID: <9305121900.AA09630@banff>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



It occurred to me that determining whether a set of random bytes is
actually a crypto message could be reduced to the halting problem.
Given this, it would be theoretically impossible to prove that an
uncrackable message was indeed a crypto message.  The revelation here
(for me, anyway) is that if arbitrary crypto were made illegal, the
burden of proof would be on the prosecution which would have to crack
the message (at least partially).


Paul E. Baclace
peb@procase.com






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