Trustworthy contacts

[Brian Gladman]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Howe" <DHowe@Hawkswing.demon.co.uk>
To: <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 1:44 PM
Subject: Re: Trustworthy contacts


> From: Brian Gladman <brg@gladman.plus.com>
> To: <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
> Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2000 9:27 AM
> Subject: Re: Trustworthy contacts
> > From: "George Foot" <georgefoot@oxted.demon.co.uk>
> > To: "ukcrypto" <ukcrypto@maillist.ox.ac.uk>
> > Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 11:12 AM
> > Subject: Trustworthy contacts
> > > A cryptosystem common to a  number of nations is impractical unless
> > > those nations are fully integrated politically and have a discipline
> > > which allows a full investigation by any one of them into lapses which
> > > occur in any  other of them  --- a state of intimate political union
for
> > > which there is no prospect at the present time ?
> > Not so since a number of nations already use shared cryptosystems.
Major
> > nations deploy a large number of different cryptosystems and what will
not
> > happen is that a nation will protect its critical national information
> > assets with a cryptosystem that it also shares with other nations.
>   I can see relatively easy ways to do this, provided all parties use a
> hybrid approach and *proven* symmetric components from the set of such
> algorithms.

Unfortunately they use homegrown symmetric algorithms and don't trust each
other's algorithms for critical national information.

There has been a suggestion that citizen owned information in the UK might
be protected with homegrown, unpublished algorithms such as Red Pike. I am
not sure where this is at the moment (e.g. in the NHS) but I certainly don't
want anything as fishy as this coming anywhere near my own information until
the algorithm is published and subjected to open independent expert review..

     Brian