From: Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 94 18:53:02 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Breaking the NSA
In-Reply-To: <9412081408.ZM999@wiley.sydney.sgi.com>
Message-ID: <9412090252.AA29178@mycroft.rand.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



> "Ian Farquhar" <ianf@sydney.sgi.com> writes:
> I am told that a similar trick was tried by some people back in the
> early 1980's, when they were trying to figure out if the NSA could
> indeed break DES.  There was no official response to these attempts.

When I ported Adventure (the original 350-point version) to Unix in 1976 I
used a light interrupted-key Vigenere-like encryption on the database.  I
heard through a circuitous route a little later that some of the players
at NSA had found it easier (or perhaps more fun) to solve the database
than to solve the game.

In the next version (abt 1978) I used DES on the database (yes, I know
somebody could disassemble it and find where I left the key, but that's
not terribly trivial either for a program that size).  I never heard back
one way or the other whether they'd hacked it again.

	Jim Gillogly
	19 Foreyule S.R. 1994, 02:50