[79905] in Cypherpunks
Re: One-Time Pads as Attack Method
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Paul Bradley)
Tue May 13 04:22:13 1997
Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 16:26:26 +0000 ( )
From: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
To: 00043.an@edtec.com
Cc: cypherpunks@algebra.com
In-Reply-To: <199705101646.MAA21972@main.inetnow.net>
Reply-To: Paul Bradley <paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk>
> Is posting a TRANSFORM such as a 'OTP' that converts copyrighted material A
> into copyrighted material B a violation of anything, I wonder... You could
> convert everybody's Internet Explorer into a ZIP file containing a setup
> and executable for Netscape 3.0!!
Technically, an OTP has a problem here because the two files, A and B,
must be exactly the same size. Padding can solve this of course.
Legally though this is an interesting question: As I understand it (and I
have only a very limited understanding of the law) copyrights make
illegal the act of copying the material, rather than the act of owning
it. Therefore, if I do A XOR B where A is say micro$oft access, and B is
my transformation, and get C which is a copy of, say, micro$oft excel, I
have commited no crime. Does anyone on here with a knowledge of the law
have an opinion on this?
> >Do you think that Microsoft has a one-time-pad that will convert
> >Netscape 3.1 into Word for Windows?
Of course it need not even be an OTP, we could use a mapping to permute
the bits in one file onto the bits in another. If this were illegal under
current law, what would be illegal, the program, the owning of it, the
act of using it to create the copyrighted software C????????????
Datacomms Technologies data security
Paul Bradley, Paul@fatmans.demon.co.uk
Paul@crypto.uk.eu.org, Paul@cryptography.uk.eu.org
Http://www.cryptography.home.ml.org/
Email for PGP public key, ID: FC76DA85
"Don`t forget to mount a scratch monkey"
