Re: Matrix-Multiplication: Security?

From: Bryan Olson (fakeaddress_at_nowhere.org)
Date: 05/28/05

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    Date: Sat, 28 May 2005 03:13:40 GMT

    Anton wrote:
    > I've written a Delphi-program to encode textmessages with
    > matrix-multiplication.
    [...]
    > my teacher want to know the security especially compared with
    > standards like DES etc.

    Take heart Anton; all is not lost.
    The answers have not been what you wanted to hear. They are
    correct, but don't worry; lots of smart people have designed
    insecure ciphers. In fact, quite a few have come up with the
    matrix-multiplication cipher.

    You can still produce an excellent computer-science class
    project. Write up why you intuitively expected the cipher to be
    secure, and then show how you found your expectation to be
    false. Read the posts, in particular Peter Pearson's, and follow
    through to break the cipher.

    That's science: make a hypothesis, and then pursue the evidence
    that would *disprove* it. A paper that shows how to break a
    simple and appealing cipher is superior to one that proposes
    some method and concludes "I don't know how to break it". 

    -- 
--Bryan
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