Re: Hal's Third Challenge?

[Mark <mark@lochard.com.au>]

>I'd rather see a Microsoft challenge than a third Netscape 40-bitter.
>We've made our point about 40-bit keys on Netscape's skull enough times,
>and Microsoft is making smug product announcements referring to those
>Netscape breaks.
>
>Time to spread our joy around a bit, I'd say.

Indeed. With the huge amount of people that dislike m$ I think we will at
least double the amount of persons wanting to do their bit to rub their
noses in it.  Whats needed is someone to reverse engineer a m$ transfer,
according to the published specs, isolate the encrypted section and then
produce a brute engine which can be ported to the platforms we want to try.

For the person that cracks a session using the brute force program in the
next brutefest and provides the key, I will give a US$50 international money
order to. I'm sure others will pile t-shirts on you as well.

IMHO we owe Netscape some counter pr against m$, we've proved our point to
Netscape and they performed admirally by being open and responsible to the
net.community. Whilst it didnt seem to dent their share value, they did cop
some bad press (and some media weenies still think their product is broken)
because of the groups efforts. What goads me is m$ trying to use this in
their press dealing and acting like this is entirely different from their
situation. Seems to me they need it proved to them that because of their
proprietary attitude they are in a worse position. In short bring them down
to earth and serve their ego to them on a plate.

Cheers,
Mark
mark@lochard.com.au
The above opinions are rumoured to be mine.