Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 09:35:28 -0500 (CDT) From: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com> To: jbenson@nando.net (James Benson) Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: $100 HACKING CONTEST! Message-ID: <199607261435.JAA16695@brasil.moneng.mei.com> In-Reply-To: <4t8tii$7cm@castle.nando.net> from "James Benson" at Jul 25, 96 10:47:46 pm
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> Finally, something new to hack (or at least try to)! Check out our > contest at: > > http://www.webbuild.com/~jbenson/contest.html > > Good luck! (You'll need it....) This isn't hacking, this is cracking, and not very exciting at that. Want to add a little excitement? Provide the algorithm. A good encryption algorithm can stand on its own, and in theory will not provide much helpful information when breaking it. Example: DES, a relatively strong encryption algorithm based on data loss, tables, and bit operations. Granted, a 56-bit key is not too strong these days, but the theories behind DES still appear to be quite reasonable and secure. A bad encryption algorithm might appear relatively strong at first, because it is REALLY easy to scramble bits, but an analysis of the encryption algorithm might suggest a trivial way to either break the code or substantially reduce the size of the search space. An encryption product with a shoddy algorithm is worth about as much as a copy of /bin/cat. Even if you do not provide source, people will still determine how the tool works by reverse engineering (disassembling), and if the algorithm is weak, it will be easy to break. If the algorithm is strong, ... Good luck, ... Joe ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Greco - Systems Administrator jgreco@ns.sol.net Solaria Public Access UNIX - Milwaukee, WI 414/546-7968
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