From: Michael Handler <grendel@netaxs.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Jan 95 16:58:55 PST
To: Harry Bartholomew <bart@netcom.com>
Subject: Call Security (Was: Re: TJOAUC 1-7)
In-Reply-To: <199501221133.DAA20304@netcom13.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.950122195349.24135E-100000@unix3.netaxs.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Sun, 22 Jan 1995, Harry Bartholomew wrote:

>  Call Security / Voice Crypto FAQ                     Neil Johnson

	This guy showed up in sci.crypt back in November of '94, with the 
"Call Security" program. It had some new unknown public-key algorithm in 
it that he had designed himself. He raved about the security of his 
program, and "Why wait for Voice PGP! Secure Voice is here now!". Just to 
show how secure his new algorithm was, he posted a challenge example, and 
asked for people to break it.

	Don Coppersmith posted the answer to the challenge the next
morning. It took thirty lines of Scheme code and about a minute on his
RS/6000. The only reason it took him so long to post it was that he saw 
the challenge at the start of work that day, and not when it was posted 
the night before. :-)

	Insert obligatory warning about snake-oil here.

Michael
--
Michael Handler                                         <grendel@netaxs.com>
Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics                   Philadelphia, PA
PGP Key ID FC031321  Print: 9B DB 9A B0 1B 0D 56 DA  61 6A 57 AD B2 4C 7B AF
"Toi qui fais au proscrit ce regard calme et haut" -- Baudelaire * Skotoseme