From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Received: by 10.236.223.198 with SMTP id v66mr29621217yhp.21.1418719983830; Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:53:03 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 10.140.23.208 with SMTP id 74mr10229qgp.23.1418719983812; Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:53:03 -0800 (PST) Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!usenet.blueworldhosting.com!feeder01.blueworldhosting.com!peer02.iad.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!s7no7916457qap.1!news-out.google.com!r1ni54qat.1!nntp.google.com!s7no7916453qap.1!postnews.google.com!glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 00:53:03 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <87vblc7mwh.fsf@ixod.org> Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: glegroupsg2000goo.googlegroups.com; posting-host=5.80.153.30; posting-account=pmkN8QoAAAAtIhXRUfydb0SCISnwaeyg NNTP-Posting-Host: 5.80.153.30 References: <1a2fea61-bcc1-43a9-b6e3-edf474308402@googlegroups.com> <5d31987b-b96b-481b-ac4d-f87114257bb4@googlegroups.com> <87vblc7mwh.fsf@ixod.org> User-Agent: G2/1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <9ee2f572-0f95-4f4c-bcc8-83debae7868d@googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: Ada Connections to this Crypto. From: Austin Obyrne Injection-Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 08:53:03 +0000 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Received-Bytes: 6407 X-Received-Body-CRC: 3314033882 Xref: news.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:24035 Date: 2014-12-16T00:53:03-08:00 List-Id: On Monday, December 15, 2014 7:06:56 PM UTC, Mark Carroll wrote: > Austin Obyrne writes: >=20 > > The bottom line has to be "Where are the ciphers that all these clever = readers have written? - there blowing in their own wind can be the only ans= wer - there's pedantry, politics and petulance, vicious personal attacks bu= t no ciphers" > > A bit like the golfer who has a lovely set of clubs, polishes the bag = , cleans and polishes his shoes, buys some snazzy outfits with a white cap,= knows the rules of the game inside out panders to club politics with lots = of 'me too' stuff but never hits a ball. >=20 > Not really. I would have loved to developed worthwhile ciphers. In some > of my master's program work I developed software for generating and > assessing block ciphers; only last year I worked on an idea for > automating differential cryptanalysis to assist in my ideas for creating > ciphers. (It failed miserably.) I am /not/ offering cipher designs > because I have read enough and learned enough and tried enough to have > found that I am simply not good enough at it: that other people in the > field are far more skilled than I am, and that I still don't understand > the theory well enough to devise ciphers and provide credible assurance > of their security. >=20 > I'm not like a golfer who panders to club politics, I'm like a golfer > who likes the game but after a lot of trying and even two rounds of > classes still can't even hit the ball reliably and realizes that his > efforts are best applied elsewhere. I wouldn't have responded to you at > all had you not been persistently filling an Ada group -- something I > /am/ interested in reading about -- with your peculiar assertions and > misapprehensions, which I've made a good-faith constructive effort to > help you move past. >=20 > -- Mark Hi Mark, I don't profess to be anything in the way of an Ada developer or a cryptogr= aphy developer but when one comes up with an algorithm that is demonstrably= irreversible then that's it - the mathematics don't lie and the mathemati= cian cannot lie successfully in the face of all the known and time proven t= heorems. It's simple - anybody even a person totally unrelated to cryptogr= aphy can come up with a successful algorithm - a cab driver, a doctor of me= dicine, anybody. There is no apprenticeship to be served, no defence to be= made for having tried, no need to vindicate oneself to so-called pros - al= l it needs is the mathematical proof. Spotting bases for algorithms is an art. It helps if one has a very broad = background of *Applied maths and even then there is a specially aptitude ne= eded. One never sets out to write an algorithm - you keep the general idea= in your head and when opportunity knocks you answer by doggedly pursuing e= ven the slightest whiff of an idea - figment of the imagination, conjecture= , copious testing, claim, theorem - that's the order. In my view there are no associates (camp followers) of cryptography - you a= re in it to write algorithms - nothing else. Mt background is in ship propulsion - I was Chief Engineer in the British M= erchant Navy for most of my life - I also have a very large background in p= ower generation stations , factories. Inspection work and much more. My basic career qualification is more of a License (Ministry of Transport C= ertificate of Competency as Chief Engineer) to operate rather than an acade= mic one and it follows an apprenticeship at the bench. I attained a Fellow= ship of my Institute followed by Chartered Engineer Registration (40 years = ago) and I have studied Pure and Applied Maths on a Degree course at Unive= rsity. I was pitched into cryptography accidentally when I asked another mathemati= cian to read my invention of 'vector factoring'. =20 None of this is important to the ciphers in hand - the point I am making is= that the skill of spotting algorithms is dependent to a great extent on on= e's creative instincts in mathematics. I my view proper cryptography does not yet exist - it will come eventually = and like everything else that lasts it will be underpinned by well-establis= hed decimal mathematical methods. Of the three disciplines that are involved i.e. cryptography, mathematics a= nd programming the most important one is the one comes naturally to some of= us - that is the ability to spot algorithms - it can be acquired with tim= e by others but it must be there somehow in order to write cipher algorithm= s. Everything else that purports to be worth posting is just playing with the = box that cryptography comes in. No. I am not a 'nutcase' to be humoured good-naturedly - that's the face-sa= ving escape hatch for the under-achievers to brand me as such. Its quite a= musing to hear the no-hopers spouting on about my perceived shortcomings no= t having written anything of note themselves. adacrypt.