[7663] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: What would you like to see in a book on cryptography for
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Paul Johnson)
Fri Aug 11 17:55:30 2000
Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20000811134127.00b4a390@ebible.org>
Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2000 14:23:02 -0600
To: cryptography@c2.net
From: Michael Paul Johnson <mpj@ebible.org>
In-Reply-To: <20000811192004.24930.qmail@nym.alias.net>
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At 07:20 PM 8/11/00 +0000, lcs Mixmaster Remailer wrote:
>William Rowden writes:
>> In the tempting-but-wrong category, one could include samples of the
>> insecure systems that result when programmers with no cryptanalysis
>> background create their own cryptographic algorithms.
>
>Yes, and let us hope that Michael Paul Johnson resists the temptation to
>plug his own home-grown ciphers, Sapphire and Diamond. Hopefully he'll
>realize that including his own ciphers in the book will ruin what little
>credibility he has as an author.
Actually, I'd rather publish your credible cryptanalysis of those ciphers, if you care to enlighten us. Lacking that, I'll see if I can egg someone else on to do so by writing about them, too. I'm not as concerned about what one anonymous person thinks about my credibility as I am about advancing the state of the art of computer cryptography and making it more accessible to the average programmer. I think that involves a balance where I will promote the best ciphers (i. e. the AES finalists), but also explain the design, analysis, and limitations of my own ciphers. Who else could explain them as well?
Seriously, if you know of a real weakness in either the Sapphire II Stream Cipher or the Diamond 2 Block Cipher, please let us all know on this list, especially me. I honestly don't know of one, but I openly admit that I could have missed something. Do I write about these ciphers being victorious over your scrutiny, or about their demise? Either one has value.
_______
Michael Paul Johnson
mpj@eBible.org http://ebible.org/mpj
