Re: Should be in crypto for John E. Hadstate Re: just stupid?

From: Joe Peschel (jpeschel_at_no.spam.org)
Date: 07/29/05 

Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 05:39:41 -0000

"Terry Ritter" <ritter@ciphersbyritter.com> wrote in
news:1122586838.721535.247060@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:

> Joe Peschel wrote:
>> Crypto@S.M.S wrote in news:11dp8eotbau534f@news.supernews.com:
>>
> [...]
>> >>
>> >> Ritter is not a cryptologist.
>> >>
>> >
>> > And by that you mean he has nothing to contribute to this discussion?
>>
>> Not as an authority.
>
> In Science, the issue is the Argument, not the
> Person; implying otherwise would seem to be a
> sad, serious and fundamental error in reasoning.

No! Ritter was cited an as expert by this CryptoSMS fellow. His was an
"Appeal to Authority" argument, and was in this case, a logical fallacy.

See: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

            An Appeal to Authority is a fallacy with the
            following form:

      1.Person A is (claimed to be) an authority on subject S.
      2.Person A makes claim C about subject S.
      3.Therefore, C is true.

            This fallacy is committed when the person in question
            is not a legitimate authority on the subject. More
            formally, if person A is not qualified to make
            reliable claims in subject S, then the argument will
            be fallacious.

In other words, if an authority is cited as an expert on the subject, he
ought to actually be an expert on the subject. In this case, the issue is
cryptology, and Mr. Ritter is an engineer and, unfortunately, not a
cryptologist.

>
> In practice, the multiple encryption tradeoff
> seems fairly straightforward: the cost is just
> added effort; one of many advantages is to
> address the "single point of failure" inherent
> in using just one cipher. If we could guarantee
> the strength of our chosen cipher, we would just
> use it, but in practice no cipher has any such
> guarantee.
>
> [See, for example, "proof" in my Glossary:
> http://www.ciphersbyritter.com/GLOSSARY.HTM#Proof ]
>
> The main advantage of multiple encryption is
> *not* to "guarantee" strength.

When we encrypt with multiple different ciphers, the resulting encryption
needs to analyzed as if it was one (not a cascade of ciphers) cipher. The
ciphers in CryptoSMS have not been thoroughly studied.

J 

-- 
__________________________________________
http://www.impeach-bush-now.org
Joe Peschel 
D.O.E. SysWorks                                 
http://members.aol.com/jpeschel/index.htm
__________________________________________

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