Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!mailrus!purdue!haven!adm!smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: UNIX-like crypt function
Keywords: crypt unix
Message-ID: <10815@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Date: 24 Aug 89 19:00:00 GMT
References: <855@eutrc3.urc.tue.nl> <2152@netcom.UUCP> <17369@ut-emx.UUCP> <1989Aug23.235721.23833@i88.isc.com>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 12

In article <1989Aug23.235721.23833@i88.isc.com> rmiller@i88.isc.com (Richard J. Miller) writes:
>the restriction is not so much to keep the function out of the "wrong"
>hands, especially seeing as it does not decrypt, but rather to keep the
>algorithm out of lots of peoples hands so they can't figure out how to
>decrypt the results.

That's totally wrong.  The DES encryption algorithm has been published,
many times, in the open literature.  The UNIX "salt" variation has also
been described publicly.  Furthermore, the code itself has been shipped
to overseas sites many times in the past.

There is no logical reason for the restriction; it's bureaucratic only.