From: "Jim Russell" <jrussell@syncrypt.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 1997 06:05:50 +0800
To: <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>
Subject: Re: SynCrypt: the new PGP?
Message-ID: <01bce8a2$032602e0$2901320a@Polaris.domain>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



>>Anybody heard of syncrypt?

I have.  Of course, being one of its authors, that's to be expected.

>>File wiping, group encryption, automatic encryption of files put in
certain directories... hiding encrypted files in pictures!

True, true, true and true.  I might add that the Secure Delete file wiping
passes Kent Briggs' "Directory Snoop" check on Windows 95.

>>It pulls them back out again too.

We'd have some unhappy customers if it didn't. <g>

>>Plus it has an interesting "20 questions" method for backing up your
passphrase.

For the algorithmically inclined among us, this was implemented via Shamir's
secret-sharing scheme.  There was also a great deal of discussion about what
questions to ask -- "What's your favorite color?" doesn't provide as much
entropy as "What was the last name of your favorite grade school teacher?",
for example.

>>Bruce Schneier is working with them, so they should have good crypto.

Yes, having Bruce and his colleague Chris Hall consulting with us was
invaluable.  They beat up on us pretty good during the betas, which is
exactly what we wanted.

>>No gak or even cak in sight.

Absolutely true.  Our enterprise level product, SynCrypt Gold, is currently
in development, and its data recovery features will be implemented in such a
way that it could *never* become an
infrastructure for GAK.

  Jim Russell <jrussell@syndata.com>
  Chief Software Engineer
  SynData Technologies, Inc.
  http://www.syncrypt.com