From: WTShaw on
On Mar 25, 2:08 am, Boon <root(a)localhost> wrote:
> WTShaw wrote:
> > rossum wrote:
>
> >> Adacrypt seems to have an obsession with ASCII and appears to be
> >> unable to realise that dealing with general binary data is far more
> >> useful and covers a far wider range of situations.
>
> > Also excludes many things that don't do well with binary.  Try
> > whistling in binary based notes; be the first to do so.
>
> How is audio encoded on YOUR compact discs?
>
> What is it about sci(ENTIFIC).crypt(OLOGY) that draws so many
> kooks, cranks, and non-understanders?

Logic means more than what you prefer.
From: Mark Murray on
On 26/03/2010 20:56, WTShaw wrote:
> On Mar 25, 3:00 pm, Mark Murray<w.h.o...(a)example.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I've been scared witless by a skydiving crank (I have 400 jumps
>> myself).
>>
>
> Wantabe test pilot?

:-)

The crank thought he was a "natural talent". Everyone else thought he
was a talentless maniac with a death wish. He saw Point Break too many
times, I guess. Every club in the country (.ZA) had him on their watch
list.

Me? Test pilot? Naah. When I look at an aeroplane, I look at the door,
the passenger capacity and the climb rate. C-130 is the clear winner of
all that I have tried.

M
--
Mark "No Nickname" Murray
Notable nebbish, extreme generalist.
From: Phil Carmody on
Boon <root(a)localhost> writes:
> WTShaw wrote:
>
>> rossum wrote:
>>
>>> Adacrypt seems to have an obsession with ASCII and appears to be
>>> unable to realise that dealing with general binary data is far more
>>> useful and covers a far wider range of situations.
>>
>> Also excludes many things that don't do well with binary. Try
>> whistling in binary based notes; be the first to do so.
>
> How is audio encoded on YOUR compact discs?
>
> What is it about sci(ENTIFIC).crypt(OLOGY) that draws so many
> kooks, cranks, and non-understanders?

The fact that it's on usenet? ;-/

Phil
--
I find the easiest thing to do is to k/f myself and just troll away
-- David Melville on r.a.s.f1
From: Pubkeybreaker on
On Mar 23, 12:44�pm, Earl_Colby_Pottinger
<earlcolby.pottin...(a)sympatico.ca> wrote:
> On Mar 23, 10:43�am, "J.D." <degolyer...(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Adacrypt: clueless gobshite or incompetent swindler? �Truly a question
> > for the ages...
>
> You have cut to the meat. I can't think of a third option.

Mentally retarded psychotic?? Perhaps he is not taking
his clozapine.
From: Sebastian Garth on
On Mar 23, 6:38 am, adacrypt <austin.oby...(a)hotmail.com> wrote:
> In order to become viable in mainstream cryptography and indeed become
> very, very useful all round, the historic one-time pad must become
> number–theoretic instead of being merely lexical as at the present
> time. It can then become an extremely efficient, theoretically
> unbreakable cipher. One of the best on the table, no less.
>
> ASCII makes that possible.
>
> The historic OTP is an adaptation of the Vigenere Cipher of the year
> 1586 or thereabouts.
>
> A first step in this direction is to look at p.15 of “Applied
> Cryptography” by Bruce Schneier – he states an equation of the OTP
> there and this can be taken as a starting point in your understanding
> of what comes later.
>
> The next step is a new adaptation of the Vigenere cipher in which the
> square is populated by the writable subset of ASCII i.e. the
> characters numbered 95 to 126 inclusive.
>
> Combining both of these changes i.e. expressing the equation of the
> Vigenere square by means of its mathematical equation and then
> populating the square with the writable alphanumeric subset of
> elements of ASCII instead of the 26 alphabetic characters of the
> English language opens the way for a lot of mathematical research that
> the reader may well want to subscribe to with your own invention.  Any
> branch of mathematics could be useful in this respect.
>
> I have written two independent adaptations of the Vigenere square that
> are inevitably look-alikes of the historic OTP (but are not OTP’s per
> se, mark you carefully). These are ASCII_Pad onhttp://www.adacrypt.com
> and “A Scalable_ Key Cipher” onhttp://www.scalarcryptography.co.uk.
>
> I believe this is the beginning and not the end of this new innovative
> cryptography and indeed there are lots more that the enterprising
> reader may look for. Go for it - is what I say!
>
> It is time to stop playing with the hackneyed old box, the OTP is much
> loved but has served its purpose, although that has escaped
> understanding by a lot of people – whether you understand the historic
> OTP or not it is time to draw a line under it now and move on -
> continuing to quote it is 'barking up the wrong tree'.
>
> What I am saying here is that the Vigenere Cipher of 1586 is back in
> serious contention and suitably equipped readers should try writing
> some new computer-driven ciphers.
>
> Rabid, blind loyalty in nostalgic supporting of the defunct OTP should
> stop now – it has become a useless cult, the OTP will never be
> forgotten but it is time to move on now to better things.  Don’t fret,
> the OTP will always have a place in the archives but it is not worth
> anything more – it is futile arguing about it.
>
> Again. These ciphers are ASCII_modulated Vigenere Ciphers – they are
> modern adaptations of that once very powerful cipher. They are not
> OTP’s although they conform to the same key-length and one-time usage
> criteria of any stream cipher that must be satisfied by all ciphers
> that claim to be theoretically unbreakable (p.21 –Definitions.
> “Handbook of Applied Cryptography”) according to the industry
> standards.
>
> It’s time to get it right!
>
> After the revolution !!
>  - adacrypt

I don't think you understand the principle of the OTP quite so well,
and how exactly it is applied in practice. Given two bits XOR'ed
together, one of DATA, and the other of CODE, it is *impossible* to
infer their state by analyzing the output bit. Period. So the OTP is
clearly unbreakable. Unfortunately, practical matters of key
distribution make the OTP an unsuitable "complete" encryption system,
and as such it is generally used in conjunction with other processes.
Typically, the data is first compressed. A public key exchange
algorithm is used to generate a block of data (the "pad"). This block
is finally combined with the original data (the OTP step). That's more
or less how it works.

As far as your text-based cryptosystem is concerned, it sounds a hell
of a lot less secure than, say, RSA, DHA, or similar algorithms that
work with large integers. Just a guess, though.

Cheers,

- Sebastian