From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@invweb.net>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 07:14:31 +0800
To: cypherpunks@einstein.ssz.com
Subject: Yet Again Another Snake Oil Vendor
Message-ID: <199810062107.RAA26498@domains.invweb.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Below is a message I posted to the SpyKing mailing list a few months back
when Jaws decided to spam the list with their crypto "challange".

>From: "William H. Geiger III" <whgiii@invweb.net>
>Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 14:41:24 -0500
>To: SpyKing <spyking@con2.com>
>In-Reply-To: <3.0.3.32.19980601033850.0355c350@admin.con2.com>
>Subject: POST RE: $5,000,000 Encryption contest

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In <3.0.3.32.19980601033850.0355c350@admin.con2.com>, on 06/01/98 
   at 02:38 AM, SpyKing <spyking@con2.com> said:

>15)From: SpyKing@thecodex.com
>Subject: $5,000,000 "Break the Code" Encryption Contest

>Friday May 29, 3:00 pm Eastern Time
>Company Press Release
>SOURCE: JAWS Technologies Inc.

>JAWS Launches $5,000,000 ``Break the Code'' Encryption Contest


<sigh> Yet another Snake-oil post.

Such challenges like this are really meaningless and are designed as a
publicity stunt to gain some free press rather than as a legitimate test
of the strength of the algorithms involved.

The *only* way to test the security of an algorithm is through a process
of peer-review of the source code.

Until JAWS Technologies decides to go through this process I would stay
far away from this and any other products they may produce. It seems quite
clear that they have little to no understanding of the cryptology &
security fields.

I don't know what it is about the list but it seems that we must endure
these snake-oil posts on a periodic basis.

While I have replied here to many of these snake-oil advertisements I have
yet to see one of these companies post a rebuttal (to the list or
privately).

I have submitted a copy of the Snake-Oil FAQ to SpyKing requesting that he
publish it to the list (it's a little long so I don't want to post it
directly). It can also be found at:

http://www.interhack.net/people/cmcurtin/snake-oil-faq.html

Security & Encryption are the big buzz-words in the computer industry and
many companies are looking to cash-in on it. Be very wary of Johnny Come
Lately's who overnight become cryptology "experts".


- -- 
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
William H. Geiger III  http://users.invweb.net/~whgiii
Geiger Consulting    Cooking With Warp 4.0

Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice
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Tag-O-Matic: I love running Windows! NOT!

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Tag-O-Matic: You're throwing it all out the Windows!

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 -- End of forwarded message
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Tag-O-Matic: If at first you don't succeed, work for Microsoft.