Xref: utzoo sci.electronics:19853 sci.crypt:4612 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!portal!cup.portal.com!ts From: ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) Newsgroups: sci.electronics,sci.crypt Subject: Re: VCR PLUS+ ...PSSST...WHAT'S THE CODE? Message-ID: <41959@cup.portal.com> Date: 3 May 91 13:05:12 GMT References: <4764@osc.COM> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 21 Why do you assume that they did not hire cryptographers? The company that makes this thing is in Pasadena, California. The only rational reason a company making a gadget like this would be in Pasadena would be if they are from Caltech or JPL or both. Assuming that they want to protect these codes, I would expect people from Caltech or JPL to be smart enough to either hire a cryptographer or to learn enough about cryptography themselves to make this a hard problem. Tim Smith ps: I think that they can make this problem very hard without using sophisticated cryptographic methods. For instance, with 100K or so of ROM (quite feasible in a device this size), they could simply use a table lookup scheme as part of the encoding process. If these tables are well constructed, to break this you might either have to have a nearly complete set of encodings, or take the device apart and disassemble the software.