Re: Passwords, passphrases, etc.

[Jim Gillogly <jim@acm.org>]

> Michael Wilson <0005514706@mcimail.com> writes:
> Another brief observation you might want to think about in regards to the 
> implications; the data in the public domain for cryptanalysis tends to be based
> primarily in the English language (frequency tables, dictionary attacks, etc.).
> Isn't it striking that so little of similar data has leaked out for what one can
> assume were the real targets--Russian, Arabic, German, etc.?  Seems to be quite
> an effort to attack English-based systems.  There also seems to be an unusual

Pedagogy rather than conspiracy -- you're reading the wrong books.  It's
easier to explain stuff to people in a language they understand, so they
can do the right things with guessing the middles of words and phrases,
extending key or plaintext islands, and so on.

Try Kullback's "Statistical Methods in Cryptanalysis", which does literary
and telegraphic English, as well as frequencies for French, German, Italian,
Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish; and digraphs for Czech, French,
German, Italian (military), Japanese, Polish, Spanish, and Swedish.
Sacco's "Manual of Cryptography" also has various languages, and Givierge
concentrates on French (as you might expect).  Military Cryptanalytics
part I vol 2 (Friedman and Callimahos) has lots of foreign language and
English stats: German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian.
The stats in Military Cryptanalytics Part III (the declassified parts)
include 24 languages.  All but the last are available from Aegean Park
Press, P.O. Box 2837, Laguna Hills CA 92654-0837, (714)586-8811.

	Jim Gillogly
	9 Afterlithe S.R. 1994, 23:16