From: gtoal@an-teallach.com (Graham Toal)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 94 09:21:20 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Probabilistic Encryption
Message-ID: <199407141619.RAA13236@an-teallach.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


: > 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?

BBS is Blum-Blum-Shub, a cryptographically strong RNG I believe.  (Haven't
looked at it personally).  How he plans using this in some way to get the
effect of an RSA public key system I have no idea.  I hope we're not about
to get the usual kiddy PRNG exor encryption lecture.  Some of the things the
guy said suggested maybe he does know what he's talking about, but his writing
style isn't inspiring.  Clue for the guy: other people haven't the foggiest
idea about what has been going round in your head for the last year.  Try
to give some context and set the scene in more general terms before you
dive into conjectures.  Otherwise you risk sounding slightly detached
from reality, as in the expression "So what color's the sky in _your_
world, then?"...  It may well be you've something useful to say, but
if you don't say it in the text one or two postings, you're in danger
of slipping into my mental kill-file mode where I gloss over your postings
without reading them properly.  I suspect others read cpunks mail in a
similar fashion.

G