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1998-09-21 - Re: ArcotSign (was Re: Does security depend on hardware?)

Header Data

From: Bruce Schneier <schneier@counterpane.com>
To: Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@stud.uni-muenchen.de>
Message Hash: bfc09e36604a8f214facf499a64499606442945241367ba0b42df2004b3d6e3c
Message ID: <199809221242.HAA01777@mixer.visi.com>
Reply To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980921133001.20069A-100000@blackbox>
UTC Datetime: 1998-09-21 23:42:36 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 07:42:36 +0800

Raw message

From: Bruce Schneier <schneier@counterpane.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 07:42:36 +0800
To: Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@stud.uni-muenchen.de>
Subject: Re: ArcotSign (was Re: Does security depend on hardware?)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980921133001.20069A-100000@blackbox>
Message-ID: <199809221242.HAA01777@mixer.visi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



At 02:28 PM 9/22/98 +0100, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
>Bruce Schneier wrote:
>> 
>> At 02:20 PM 9/22/98 +0100, Mok-Kong Shen wrote:
>
>> >If the 'mathematical magic' is not to be kept secret (as in principle
>> >shouldn't for all crypto algorithms) then presumably one could
>> >attack through brute forcing the 'remembered secrect', I guess.
>> 
>> Yes, but only through an on-line protocol.   And if the server has some
>> kind of "turn the user off after ten bad password guesses," then the
>> atack doesn't work.
>
>I remember someone wrote of the case where the attacker got the
>file with the millions of passwords. Then if he also knows the
>'mathematical magic' he could presumably do offline work. So I
>suppose that the 'mathematical magic' has to be kept secret, which 
>would work against the generally accepted crypto principles.

No.  The online protocol can be public.  Nothing has to be kept secret
in order for this to work.  That would be stupid; we all know that.

Bruce
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