A proper law

[David Hansen]

On 6 Mar 2003 at 14:12, Brian Gladman wrote:

> I could write a book on why some rotor machines failed while others
> remain strong even today.

I'm sure this group is a good place to give people some hints. It 
would make a change from RIP.
 
> But the main lesson I draw from this period is that it is very easy to
> take a strong cryptographic algorithm and then undermine its strength
> by using it in the wrong way.

This seems to be true today from the handful of war stories we are 
fed.
 
> Dorothy has shifted back and forth on this over the last 10 years.  I
> was not aware that she now says that GAK is not important - do you
> have a specific reference for her current position on this?

http://www.cs.georgetown.edu/~denning/crypto/anarchy-aft.html seems 
to be her current view. This refers to the much quoted 
http://www.cs.georgetown.edu/~denning/crypto/Future.html, which she 
says (in http://www.cs.georgetown.edu/~denning/publications.html) 
"does not reflect my current thinking". I assume the publications 
page is up to date, but I haven't read all of them.



--
  David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
 I will *always* explain why I revoke a key, unless the UK 
 government prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.