Re: Are These Algorithms Good?

sillybanter@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Peter Fairbrother <zenadsl6186@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The circumstances surrounding Skipjack do not fill me with warm fuzzy
feelings of truthfulness.

Suppose a technique whereby an 80-bit-key unbalanced Feistel cipher could be
designed so that it seems secure to cryptanalysis, but if the s-boxes were
chosen just so there is a method of breaking it with 2^40 work if you know
the secrets in the equations, but not if you don't know the secrets. A bit
like a provably secure trapdoor XSL attack. Generate a random secret, find
some correct s-boxes to make the equations work with the secret, ..

Such a thing is theoretically possible, though perhaps unlikely. But do you
think NSA would _not_ do such a thing if they could provably get away with
it??

This is an interesting question, because people have shown that such a
thing is indeed possible.

They have? I just made that up as an example of what might be done. Do you
have any ref's please?

To consider whether it's likely in this
case, ask yourself one question: Has the NSA approved this particular
algorithm or system for secret or top secret information?

Afaict, no it hasn't.


--
Peter Fairbrother

.

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