anonymous mail

[catalyst-remailer@netcom.com]

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>I assume from this statement that you haven't looked at my code.
>Send me email and I'll give you a copy...  or maybe someone that I
>gave it to could put it up on an FTP site, so you can get it
>anonymously.

Hey Matt, I'd be interested in a copy of your code!

>Yes, the cipher is of my own design.  First off, I can assure you
>that a brute-force keysearch will not work.  The cipher employs three
>36 element substitution arrays, which gives a total of 3x36! possible
>keys, or over 10^42.  DES has about 7.2 x 10^16 possible keys and IDEA
>about 10^38.

Well, you do have to be careful: a large number of keys doesn't mean a
cipher is hard to break, there may be a faster method than brute
force.  For instance, those cryptograms some papers print in the
puzzle section are a simple substition cipher, with 26! keys... yet
they are also pretty much trivially breakable with enough input.

Karl Barrus
<klbarrus@owlnet.rice.edu>

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