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1994-04-21 - Re: What the heck is this? Optical noise encryption? [and RNG probs]

Header Data

From: Eli Brandt <ebrandt@jarthur.cs.hmc.edu>
To: cypherpunks list <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Message Hash: 25b8307a03b551bfe25db3c63ee7180a53bc7371bb3b3d61ea9d6a286b2cfeb8
Message ID: <9404210017.AA13325@toad.com>
Reply To: <9404202015.AA22973@mycroft.rand.org>
UTC Datetime: 1994-04-21 00:17:20 UTC
Raw Date: Wed, 20 Apr 94 17:17:20 PDT

Raw message

From: Eli Brandt <ebrandt@jarthur.cs.hmc.edu>
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 94 17:17:20 PDT
To: cypherpunks list <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: What the heck is this? Optical noise encryption? [and RNG probs]
In-Reply-To: <9404202015.AA22973@mycroft.rand.org>
Message-ID: <9404210017.AA13325@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> Here's an exchange from sci.crypt in 1991 that's relevant to chaos and
> cryptography.  A guy was using the logistic function as his RNG.

I did the exact same thing once; it took me a year or so to realize
it was grossly insecure.  Never trust an eighth-grade cryptographer. :-)

As the sci.crypt FAQ says, there's no reason to expect a system
which makes interesting pictures to be secure.  The properties that
chaotic systems display are nice, but they don't display them
strongly enough -- look at iterated DES and you'll see some *real*
sensitive dependence.  Maybe with enough rounds and mixing...

   Eli   ebrandt@hmc.edu

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