From: tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 94 10:58:02 PDT
To: perry@imsi.com
Subject: Re: Probabilistic Encryption
In-Reply-To: <9407141344.AA17598@snark.imsi.com>
Message-ID: <199407141758.KAA18418@netcom9.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> solman@mit.edu says:
> > How secure do you guys think Probabilistic encryption using a BBS generator
> > is? It looks like its every bit as good for key exchanges as RSA and somewhat
> > better because of its speed.
> 
> The technique you mention is not one I've heard of. What is a BBS
> generator? Could you please explain?
> 
> Perry

Blum-Blum-Shub, a very strong random number generator, where guessing
the next bit is basically as hard as factoring some very large number.

It's main problem is that it's slow. 

Schneier has some actual code for implementing it in C.

--Tim May


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