[14835] in Cypherpunks
Re: The Crypto Home Shopping Network
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Eli Brandt)
Mon Jun 6 21:25:55 1994
To: cypherpunks list <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 94 18:22:43 PDT
From: Eli Brandt <ebrandt@jarthur.cs.hmc.edu>
In-Reply-To: <199406062335.AAA27342@an-teallach.com>; from "Graham Toal" at Jun 7, 94 12:35 am
> From: gtoal@an-teallach.com (Graham Toal)
> I think RC4 is the 32 bit cypher used in cellular phones throughout
> Europe. Rumour has it it can be cracked in realtime.
I dunno whether that's RC4, but RC4 is a stream cipher developed by
Rivest. It's not patented; instead, RSADSI licenses it only as an
object module. RC4 and RC2 (a block cipher) use variable-length
keys, and can be exported if the key length is 40 bits or less.
(Naturally, they're not very strong when used this way...)
Eli ebrandt@hmc.edu
finger for PGP key.
