🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2058@transfer.stratus.com> cme@ellisun.sw.stratus.com (Carl Ellison) writes:
> So -- you end up with an algorithm labelled: "secure against IBM PC
> clones with less than 800 MB of hard disk storage", for example, and you
> can prove security without having to resort to complexity arguments.

Yep.

> Of course, all this depends on the shared function of the two streams
> being secret -- or the eavesdropper could compute the function on the
> fly just as the real recipients do.  If the function is secret and
> shared, is this not just another private key system?

It's different---the ``key'' is the initial shared information, but (1)
unlike normal keys it doesn't have to come from a very large space, (2)
it can be transmitted by a relatively weak cryptosystem, and (3) it can
be published immediately after the flooding.

Note on (1): If the initial shared information comes randomly from a
space of one million possibilities, then the attacker can, in principle,
compute all one million functions simultaneously, but in practice this
will be impossible---even though one million can't be considered a large
enough key space for most applications.

---Dan