[2009] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Cryptographer examines Kaczynski's journal
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (William Knowles)
Fri Dec 26 20:16:48 1997
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 1997 16:57:35 -0800 (PST)
From: William Knowles <erehwon@dis.org>
To: "Perry's crypto list" <cryptography@c2.net>, DC-Stuff <dc-stuff@dis.org>
cc: DCSB <dcsb@ai.mit.edu>
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Driven by secrecy, Theodore Kaczynski
kept a cryptic diary for two decades, substituting numbers and
mathematical symbols for words and letters.
Prosecutors say the Unabomber suspect's encoded journal is the
cornerstone of their case against the mathematics professor-turned
-forest recluse. They say it provides a remarkable, step-by-step
view of years of wrongdoing -- in the defendant's own words. And
they intend to have FBI cryptographer Michael Birch lay out his
``translation'' of the entire document to jurors.
``Although Mr. Birch's expertise is breaking codes, in this case the
'key' to the defendant's code was found in the cabin,'' the government
said in its trial strategy brief. ``Therefore, Mr. Birch's expertise
will be directed to explaining to the jury how to apply the code to
the defendant's coded writings and the admission into evidence of
his completed translation.''
Earlier, lead prosecutor Robert Cleary said the journal records
are ``the backbone of the government's case.'' He said the diary
describes in detail the 16 Unabomber attacks from 1978 to 1995
that killed three people and injured 29.
Kaczynski, 55, is charged with using bombs in four attacks: He is
accused of killing a lobbyist and a computer store owner a decade
apart in Sacramento, and maiming a geneticist and a computer
professor with Sacramento-postmarked mail bombs in 1993.
Opening statements in the trial are scheduled for Jan. 5. Kaczynski
could get the death penalty if convicted. He is charged separately
in New Jersey with the third fatality attributed to the Unabomber's
18-year siege.
Unlike the Unabomber manifesto, a 35,000-word treatise that depicts
technology as an evil force, the coded diary was never intended to
be seen by anyone else.
The diary, written in pencil on several hundred pages of notepaper
and several inches thick, includes details of experiments with
explosives. It was among 20,000 documents seized from Kaczynski's
tiny Montana shack.
The diary contents have not been made public, although Birch's
decoded version was given to the defense last year.
Sources familiar with the journal describe it as a sophisticated
jumble of numbers, an intricate enigma wrapped in a riddle befitting
a Harvard-trained mathematician described by one prospective juror
as a ``smart weirdo.''
But code experts aren't so sure. They believe Kaczynski, who shunned
computers and electronic devices in his cabin without electricity,
may actually have cloaked the journal in a ``hand code'' that would
have been relatively easy to break, even without the key.
Such codes vary widely, but one basic variety resembles a checkerboard
or grid, numbered on the sides, with each square filled randomly with
a letter of the alphabet.
The coded message is a string of numbers, which are the coordinates
corresponding to the letters in the grid. To read the message, one
needs to translate the numbers using the grid, or key. But typically,
those numbers may be scrambled using a second code, and even a third,
so that the final message is shrouded in layers of secrecy.
Although such a numeric code looks daunting to the lay person, it is
no more difficult to crack than the kind of basic substitution ciphers
popular in pulp fiction or newspaper word games.
``You may have `A equals 1', and `B equals 2,' stuff like that in
a numeric code with pencil and paper. Numbers look a little more
mysterious and harder, like `39647181.' But it doesn't have anything
to do with the complexity of the code. It's totally irrelevant,''
said David Kahn, an editor at Long Island's Newsday and the author
of ``The Code Breakers,'' a seminal work on classical cryptography.
``A checkerboard cipher with nothing else going on is no harder to
crack than the simple substitution system used in a newspaper,''
added James Gillogly, president of the American Cryptogram Assoc.
He is an employee of the Westwood-based Mentat Inc., which develops
security software.
Ronald L. Rivest, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and a founder of MIT's Cryptography and Information
Security Group, agreed.
``When you are dealing in a situation where someone is working
by hand with a code, and dealing with pencil and paper, it's not
that difficult'' to decode, he said.
==
The information standard is more draconian than the gold
standard, because the government has lost control of the
marketplace.
==
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