Re: A secure, trustworthy Win XP compitable encryption program with GUI interface?

From: Benjamin Choi (nospam_at_technosoft21.com)
Date: 02/29/04 

Date: 29 Feb 2004 05:25:45 -0800

"machine99" <please@no.spam> wrote in message news:<4040cc5c$0$148$edfadb0f@dread11.news.tele.dk>...
> I have been looking at Shyfile(German) And Cypherix "SecureIT"(Indian) but
> they seem a litle dodgy to me. What can you recommend besides PGP?
You'll probably want to avoid Shyfile. It uses a proprietary 6144-bit
encryption algorithm which is remarkably similar to the German WW1
cipher ADFGVX (which was cracked). This proprietary algorithm is
essentially a linear key XOR followed by transposition of nibbles -
which is definitely nowhere as strong as most well-known block ciphers
nowadays. The PRNG generating the key to be XORed to the text could be
a secure one but the chance is extremely low. Of course, it's
proprietary too. Shyfile even makes a claim about not being like other
products which use common block ciphers like AES, etc. Also, its owner
must be having a bad business because a spam message promoting it was
posted to sci.crypt last year. 

--
Benjamin Choi

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