From: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 17:19:15 +0800
To: C Matthew Curtin <cmcurtin@research.megasoft.com>
Subject: Re: Pseudocrypto detector is going wild (was: Re: ALPHACIPHER - An unbreakable encryption program.)
In-Reply-To: <864tlgivwo.fsf@goffette.research.megasoft.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.94.960902185416.3068A-100000@polaris>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On 2 Sep 1996, C Matthew Curtin wrote:

Alex Walker <survival@aa.net>> claims:

> > The strongest encryption system available to the public will be
available
> > soon at:

[Blah Blah Blah]

> > 
> > A demo of this program along with a FAQ can be downloaded from
> > cyber-survival-hq 1SEP.  This is an unbreakable program...
> 
> Here we go again.
> 
> I just got done surfing the site above. Assuming that all statements
> regarding the unbreakability of the cipher, the lack of applicability
> of the question regarding its key size, etc., are at least based on
> some degree of truth, "alphacipher" is a one-time pad. Given that
> anything else is not really "unbreakable," if it's not a one-time pad,
> the claims about its security are bogus.

Looks like another snake oil peddler.

Look, Mr. Walker:

Either you are a marketing type, in which case I suspect you have no idea
what you are peddling, you are a techncal type, in which case you are
deceiving us, or you don't really know what you are doing, in which case
you are making representations without the benefit of knowledge.

In any of these cases, you are, it seems to me, peddling garbage.

> If I'm wrong, please show me how so. If not, please do us all a favor
> and quit with the advertising claims.

Crypto, for some reason, seems to be at the level of hair tonic when it
comes to hype advertizing making up for 0 in product quality.

> (All I need now is someone to threaten to sue me, and I'll maintain my
> record of having lawsuit threats made against me every time I
> criticize something that claims to be "strong crypto.")

Any attorney who knew anything would have that suit laughed out of court.

If he sues in D.C. come see me.

> - -- 
> C Matthew Curtin                MEGASOFT, INC                Chief Scientist
> I speak only for myself.  Don't whine to anyone but me about anything I say.
> Hacker Security Firewall Crypto PGP Privacy Unix Perl Java Internet Intranet

--
I hate lightning - finger for public key - Vote Monarchist
unicorn@schloss.li