From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 10:18:54 +0800
To: survival@aa.net
Subject: Re: Pseudocrypto detector is going wild (was: Re: ALPHACIPHER - An unbreakable encryption program.)
Message-ID: <199609030003.RAA03934@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


C Matthew Curtin <cmcurtin@research.megasoft.com> posted a reference
to ALPHACIPHER, which appears to be Yet Another Snake Oil System.
It's got good intentions - it uses (ahem) "one-time pads", and 
tries to build a convenient user interface for low-volume work.
Of course, it apparently doesn't quite get it:
>       ALPHACIPHER uses key sets generated by a 
>       proprietary random key set generator 
>       to insure the production of unique, high-quality keys. 

The key set generation is inherently part of the encryption process;
since it's proprietary, it's not possible to test the quality of the
random numbers, but they must be assumed to be low-quality crackable stuff
unless the author is willing to reveal the algorithm and demonstrate
otherwise.

The program is written in DOS, and produces its output as
UPPERCASE LETTERS to avoid being caught by eavesdropping scanners
that might detect other patterns.  Not unreasonable, I guess.

The author, Wolfgang Hammersmith, also wrote The New ADFGVX,
a cypher that can be done by hand (if necessary), which he does
acknowledge is breakable, but comments that for short messages,
there may not be enough information to break it.

#			Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, +1-415-442-2215 stewarts@ix.netcom.com
# <A HREF="http://idiom.com/~wcs"> 	
# You can get PGP software outside the US at ftp.ox.ac.uk/pub/crypto