[2347] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: GeeK: Re: Rivest's Chaffing and Winnowing
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jim Gillogly)
Tue Mar 24 14:27:00 1998
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 98 10:10:01 PST
From: jim@mentat.com (Jim Gillogly)
To: cryptography@c2.net
Eli Brandt says:
> This sort of "authenticated channel" requires that both ends share a
> secret key. Just use a secret-key cryptosystem, eh?
But then it wouldn't be an exportable system.
The point of Rivest's construction is to demonstrate that the gov't's
policy of allowing strong authentication but not strong encryption
does not prevent perfect (to the limit of the key length and HMAC
algorithm) secrecy of message transmission. It's a theoretical and
political point, not a practical one... at least not in its current
incarnaion.
Just to add a little content that appears not to have turned up,
Ron Rivest tells me that neither he nor his father were aware of
Jack Point's song in Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeomen of the Guard",
which includes the lines:
Oh, winnow all my folly, folly, folly and you'll find
A grain or two of truth among the chaff.
For a system that passes one bit of truth among 200 bits of chaff,
this seems very apropos.
Jim Gillogly
2 Astron S.R. 1998, 18:17
12.19.5.0.12, 11 Eb 10 Cumku, Third Lord of Night
