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Article #1398

Re: PGP weak on long messages (was: Re: pgp2.0 ... key length?)

#1398
From: Keith Lewis
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1992 20:07
20 lines
1522 bytes
In article <1992Oct04.084900.19815@spillman.uucp>, tye@spillman.uucp (E. Tye McQueen) writes:
>lewis@aera8700.mitre.org (Keith Lewis) writes:
>)PGP is essentially RSA performed on a bitmask which is used repeatedly on
>)a single message.
>
>Doesn't reusing the (encrypted) bit mask make long messages fairly
>easy to crack if you have ideas as to the content of the plain text?
>I guess the message would best be several times the length of the
>bit mask for this to work.

I retracted this statement after being corrected via email.  It seems that
the scheme is a little more complicated than that.  It uses the IDEA cipher
and encrypts *that* key using RSA.  

It might still be weak on very, very long messages, but nowhere near as weak
as a simple bitmask.

Keith Lewis             klewis@mitre.org          "Mr. Cheap"
I don't dance to music; music dances to me.  Email me for my PGP key.
The above may not (yet) represent the opinions of my employer.
Technical Details
Message-ID: <1992Oct6.200728.15608@linus.mitre.org>
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!agate!linus!linus.mitre.org!news
References: <1992Sep25.191759.25545@nevada.edu> <1992Oct04.084900.19815@spillman.uucp>

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Newsgroups: sci.crypt,alt.security.pgp
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!think.com!ames!agate!linus!linus.mitre.org!news
From: lewis@aera8700.mitre.org (Keith Lewis)
Subject: Re: PGP weak on long messages (was: Re: pgp2.0 ... key length?)
Message-ID: <1992Oct6.200728.15608@linus.mitre.org>
Sender: news@linus.mitre.org (News Service)
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Organization: The MITRE Corporation
References:  <1992Sep25.191759.25545@nevada.edu>
    <1992Oct04.084900.19815@spillman.uucp>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 20:07:28 GMT
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