🚀 go-pugleaf

gjb@fig.citib.com (Greg Brail) writes:
>Universal Pictures will soon release (at least in the U.S.) a movie called
>"Sneakers" that purports to be an action/adventure starring a group of
>free-lance computer security consultants. The plot centers around a
>cryptographic device. For whatever reason, I bought the book (actually
>the "novel based on the screenplay"). It was already at a Barnes and Noble
>Sale Annex in Manhattan, which might indicate how well it's selling.

Hey, but the movie looks like a good one! Just remember to only watch the
characters and ignore the technical details like in "Wargames" and half-a-dozen
other 'hacker' movies.

>But let's assume someone does figure out how to trivially factor very
>large numbers. I understand that would defeat RSA. Am I correct? How about
>DES? Are other common government and commercial cryptosystems based on
>large primes? I assume that one-time pads would still be quite effective.

DES is a seperate system that doesn't rely on Factoring large numbers or large
primes (or at least that's what a friend of mine, an expert on this stuff he
claims, told me). One-time pads are so effective that according to Tom Clancy
(can he really be telling the truth?) that they have converted to using Digital
tapes that contain the 'pad'. Any tampering with the seal means all pads of
that line are destroyed. Anyways, one-time pads are really effective in short
messages and are reasonably secure on larger documents.

>And how about this "Russian codes are different" stuff? Any truth to this?
>I understand one can buy source code for DES and RSA on the streets of
>Leningrad (according to Communications of the ACM).

Russian Codes still use one-time pads. See the above paragraph.
-- 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Travers Naran						| "We fear
Mail address: naran@fraser.sfu.ca or naran@sfu.ca       |  change. WHACK!
Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada	| WHACK! WHACK!"
Cmpt. Science student wanna-be				| -Garth 
Trekker, Leaper, Red Dwarf'er, Prober, etc.		|  "Wayne's World"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------