From: abostick@netcom.com (Alan L. Bostick)
Date: Mon, 1 Jan 1996 07:08:29 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Is this as insecure as it sounds (was FWD: Complete Fax Privacy Draws C
Message-ID: <199512312219.OAA03598@netcom17.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


This turned up on alt.anonymous.  One would need a technical specification
or a working model to be sure, but it sounds like home-grown snake oil
to me.  My guess is that a nineteenth-century cryptanalyst could crack
this, and that the TLAs would have a field day.

What do other people think?

> 
>                 Complete Fax Privacy Draws Closer
> 
> 
>      Individuals receiving faxes, be they of a business or
> personal nature, will soon be able to encrypt the contents and
> make them unreadable to people for whom the messages are not
> intended.
>      The new fax encryption technology has been developed by the
> University of Rochester in New York.  The encryption program
> would make all faxes unreadable to the naked eye.  Only by
> placing a customized transparent plastic sheet over the message
> could it be made readable.  Each individual, employee or manager
> would be issued with his own plastic sheet and encryption key
> ensuring messages are only read by those specified in the message
> itself.  The encryption software would not slow the transmission
> and reception of fax messages and the cost of installing the
> system on to existing machines would be minimal.
>      Such software would be indispensable to those whose
> activities require the utmost confidentiality or privacy.  Nosy
> employees, rivals, those providing faxing services and anybody
> else who has, until now, had a birds eye view of your fax
> communications could be successfully abolished from the security
> equation.
>      Though the software has yet to be refined into a marketable
> commodity, it is set to be introduced for public consumption in
> the very near future.
> 
> 
>      Adam Starchild
>      Asset Protection & Becoming Judgement Proof at
>      http://www.catalog.com/corner/taxhaven
> 
> 
-- 
   Alan Bostick             | SWINDON:   What will history say?
Seeking opportunity to      | BURGOYNE:  History, sir, will tell lies as usual.
develop multimedia content. |    George Bernard Shaw, THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE
Finger abostick@netcom.com for more info and PGP public key