Cryptography

Lyle Burkhead (LYBRHED@delphi.com)
Sat, 28 Dec 1996 22:33:02 -0500 (EST)


The Low Willow writes,

> As far as I can tell, this entire subthread arose from Eugene saying
> that it would still be useful to build weak encryption into TCP/IP;
> Lyle challenged this saying that those who then used strong
> encryption would be drawing attention to themselves.

Exactly. (I am amazed... )

> (2) Lyle's argument also rests on there being a diverse population
> of messages; most guarded with a standard weak algorithm,
> some bearing PGP headers. But if the strong crypto was happening
> underneath the weak, as it would if some method was built into
> TCP/IP, then any fingerprinting should be obscured; wide-target
> eavesdroppers would have to decrypt everything routinely to find
> the strongly guarded messages.

True. I concede the argument.

> Have I missed anything?

On the contrary. If all posts were as on-point as this, the list would be a
very different place.

Lyle