From: catalyst-remailer@netcom.com
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 94 12:01:34 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: anonymous mail
Message-ID: <199402272002.MAA17115@mail.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

>I assume from this statement that you haven't looked at my code.
>Send me email and I'll give you a copy...  or maybe someone that I
>gave it to could put it up on an FTP site, so you can get it
>anonymously.

Hey Matt, I'd be interested in a copy of your code!

>Yes, the cipher is of my own design.  First off, I can assure you
>that a brute-force keysearch will not work.  The cipher employs three
>36 element substitution arrays, which gives a total of 3x36! possible
>keys, or over 10^42.  DES has about 7.2 x 10^16 possible keys and IDEA
>about 10^38.

Well, you do have to be careful: a large number of keys doesn't mean a
cipher is hard to break, there may be a faster method than brute
force.  For instance, those cryptograms some papers print in the
puzzle section are a simple substition cipher, with 26! keys... yet
they are also pretty much trivially breakable with enough input.

Karl Barrus
<klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.3a

iQCVAgUBLXD7gIOA7OpLWtYzAQG6wQP/Qcim32WFYHrjZ53bIHJ2CSjmoRSmh5XI
Gcm9LbvvwPOywAzEzWaTw0g31c6rz9xor/g8EYX25lyMsYSX36LpyrZRO77XeJI4
sEitU9S8Dp0GWIVgXT6a2reLkUwbIuTU5Y4KFpRvbvTKN33GU+GKFgPAxV6/+FLr
d+rC3w2F/ms=
=U9gg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----