Re: coding and nnet's

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

   Bruce Schneier comments:

   Neural Networks

   Neural nets aren't terribly useful for cryptanalysis,
   primarily because of the shape of the solution space.
   Neural nets work best with problems that have a continuity
   of solutions, some better than others. This allows a neural
   net to learn, proposing better and better solutions as it
   does. Breaking an algorithm provides for very little in the
   way of learning opportunities: You either recover the key
   or you don't. (At least this is true if the algorithm is
   any good.) Neural nets work well in structured environments
   where there is something to learn, but not in the
   high-entropy, seemingly random world of cryptography.

   "Applied Cryptography," second edition, 1996, p. 155.