From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 01:17:57 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Lotus notes 24 bit hack project?
Message-ID: <199604112014.NAA16020@netcom7.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



reading notes on the recent RSA conference reminds me of something.

Lotus announced their 64 bit encryption for foreign users some 
months ago, with 24 bits secretly "owned" by the NSA. there
was some speculation here about how this was handled. could
the system be so insecure as to have a unique 24 bits used
across every foreign key? or are those 24 bits somehow
algorithmically determined from the other 40 bits, with
the algorithm a secret?

in any case it seems that reverse engineering of Lotus Notes
would provide the answer, and we'd be able to embarrass both
NSA and Lotus (who imho deserves it, for caving in to the NSA)
all in the same sweep by revealing it to the world!!!

I would bet this would be worth some more NYT or WSJ almost-front-page
ink for some lucky cpunks if someone can pull this off!!

this would be a *major* new feather  in the cpunk cap, and I'd
enthusiastically support anyone attempting to work on this project
(maybe writing HTML pages for information or something).

cypherpunks, start your disassemblers!!