Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!nsc!taux01!cyosta From: cyosta@taux01.UUCP (Yossie Silverman) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: Re: Encryption Message-ID: <886@taux01.UUCP> Date: 14 Aug 88 06:45:48 GMT References: <7596@trwrb.UUCP> Reply-To: taux01!cyosta@nsc.UUCP (Yossie Silverman) Organization: National Semiconductor (Israel) Ltd. Lines: 38 In article <7596@trwrb.UUCP> carlile@trwrb.UUCP (Donald E. Carlile) writes: .Whatever happened to Public Key encryption? (If memory serves it was also .refered to as RSK after the initials of its developers). . .Did it turn out to take too much time or memory? Did its developers have .a big patent problem? Is it still viable? . .Has anyone ever developed a Mac implementation? . .Thanks, .Don Carlile .{ihnp4,hplabs,decvax}!trwrb!carlile Well, there is PC implementation. It includes encrypted disk-io, mail and digital signatures. It has the fastest known implementation of RSE (note, not RSK) in the world (according to its developers). I don't think you will find it in the stores as no government that I know of is willing to allow a non-decryptable (by them) code into the public hand, especially the progressive American government, but mine (the Israeli) as well. I don't think they ever bothered to do a port to the Mac, no comercial value. The algorithms of RSE are quite simple to master, but they require some very heavy number crunching and thus, on any current CPU, heavy optimizing. The developers claimed to have a set of very very fast large number math package. If you want more information, please mail me directely, I will forward further information. An anacdote: When IBM first came out with the DES (Data Encryption Standard) idea, they had a key with 128 bits (well, 112). The US Govt did some heavy thinking and decided that their computers (circa 1970) couldn't crack a cypher in a resonable amount of time and decreed that the key should be 64 (well, 56) bits long. As a result, today, anyone at home can crack a DES cypher on his mac with a days worth of CPU. (Your bank card has your "secret" number encoded in it with DES, concider someone stealing it and decoding the number...). And you expect the Govt to okey the use of PKE by the general public, heh! -- Yossie Silverman What did the Caspian sea? National Semiconductor Ltd. (Israel) - Saki UUCP: taux01!yossie@nsc.UUCP NSA LSD FBI KGB PCP CIA MOSAD NUCLEAR MI5 SPY ASSASSINATE SDI -- OOCLAY ITAY