Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!hao!nbires!boulder!cisden!phillips
From: phillips@cisden.UUCP (Tom Phillips)
Newsgroups: net.crypt
Subject: Re: Re: factoring algorithms and RSA public key code
Message-ID: <530@cisden.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 26-Feb-86 11:04:30 EST
Article-I.D.: cisden.530
Posted: Wed Feb 26 11:04:30 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Mar-86 16:45:53 EST
References: <5083@stolaf.UUCP> <1404@panda.UUCP> <980@brl-smoke.ARPA> <2154@utcsri.UUCP> <5119@stolaf.UUCP>
Reply-To: phillips@cisden.UUCP (Tom Phillips)
Followup-To: net.crypt
Distribution: net
Organization: ConTel Information Systems, Denver
Lines: 18

In article <5119@stolaf.UUCP> flackc@stolaf.UUCP (Chap Flack) writes:
>> >Yet another illustration of the folly of basing cryptosystems
>> >on the presumed ignorance of the "enemy".
>> What else do you base them on?
>Well, suppose the problem of factoring a product of two large primes were
>*provably* hard.  In that case, the security of the system would not
>depend on the enemy's ignorance.  A more knowledgeable enemy would simply
>know better than to try to break it.
>In this particular case, the problem is not provably hard (at least, I
>haven't heard of a proof), but the idea is that you *can* imagine
>a cryptosystem that would not depend on the enemy's ignorance.
Almost right.  You ARE depending on the enemy's ignorance of your private
key, aren't you?-- 
						Tommy Phillips
From the banks of the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River,
all set about with fever-trees.

				cisden!phillips