Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sunybcs!boulder!hao!oddjob!mimsy!aplcen!osiris!mjr
From: mjr@osiris.UUCP (Marcus J. Ranum)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Subject: Re: how do you tell encrytped data from random data?
Message-ID: <1499@osiris.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jan 88 19:55:59 GMT
References: <660@bucket.UUCP> <6992@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: mjr@osiris.UUCP (Marcus J. Ranum)
Organization: Institute For Felinographical Studies
Lines: 20


	Reminds me of a wonderful concept in a book by Stanitslaw Lem
(Memoirs Found in a Bathtub):

	The underground of the Pentagon is all that remains after the end of
the world, but the spooks are sure they have been infiltrated. One of the best
tools they have is a super-dooper computer than can decrypt *ANYTHING* if it
tries hard enough. In fact, it can take plain text, and find the secret and
subversive messages hidden in it - even if there weren't any to begin with...

	Another problem with Gywn's suggestion that the only way to tell if it
is encrypted (decrypt it) - how can you tell that it is really "meaningful" ?
Anyone who has listened to first year latin students trying to "decrypt"
latin will realize that garbage in does not always imply the same garbage out.

--mjr();
-- 
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