IIT Kanpur develops new block-cipher system for IN

[Rupak]

Ramen<P>The Forum has known about Trinetra for sometime. But thanks for th update.<P>Rupak

[VRaghav]

What more can be expected out of a premier institution of higher learning like IITK? Time for the industries also to fund more such projects to the premier institutes of India (not that they are not doing it right now) besides the military. A decade of liberalization is finally bearing fruits. Give more time and with the cooperation of the Finance Ministry, things will definitely start looking brighter.

[swarup]

>Dr. Agarwal said that he was confident<BR>>"Trinetra" will prove to be a hard nut to<BR>>crack. <P>I hope so. I wonder if the NSA is shaking<BR>in its boots. I have heard that they claim<BR>there is no code that they<BR>can't break simply because they<BR>can throw more computing power at<BR>the problem than anyone else. <P>At some level I guess it boils down to<BR>how many permutations and combinations<BR>you can search in a reasonable time.<P>I wish there were some former NSA employees<BR>who are lurkng and could enlighten us.

[Div]

>>I hope so. I wonder if the NSA is shaking<BR>in its boots. I have heard that they claim<BR>there is no code that they<BR>can't break simply because they<BR>can throw more computing power at<BR>the problem than anyone else. <<<P>Not quite, you can easily make a cipher that can theoretically take billions of years to crack, using brute force that is. The NSA spealizes in having built in back doors and secret keys...that's what they did with the Swiss systems that were used worldwide.<P>

[Peeyoosh]

Salman<P>Just to add to the list of posts, there seems to be a minor ruch to install fibre optic cabling in India - apart from DOT, various electiricity distribution, rail and petroleum companies are getting into it in a pretty large way. Redundancy in communcation systems is good! Makes interception too so much harder!<P>Peeyoosh

[Peeyoosh]

David<P>On quantum computers - dubt anyone has built a commercial working machine as yet. While I guess the algebra and the math logic required to shift from pure Boolean to multi state would exist that could take advantage of the spin/state of packets, making a "chip equivalent" with lots of gates, stable over time, in a small piece of material involves engineering and materials issues way beyond theoretical computing capabilities. Perhaps you have been reading too much of M. Kaku? Salman, Ashok??<P>On breaking encryption - can always be done - the question is - in how much time? Its a bit like safes - any safe can be cracked given enough time - but a thief never has infinite time. I guess ATM systems would use 56 bit encryption as they are exported all over the world and exporting anything above 128 bits is an issue. By the way - the data transmitted on ATMs is sensitive, not critical and all ATMs need a swipe card for access.<P>Peeyoosh

[Imtiaz Ahmed]

Are all encryptions based on the fact that it is difficult to find the factors of a number that is the product of 2 large primes? If not, what are the other principles?

[Sunil]

eh.. <P>whats all this about Echelon being under UKUSA? <P>I thought UKUSA coved only photographic satelite intel. does it extend to this Echelon? <P>does anyone know? <P>Imtiaz,<P>RSA is just one of many, but RSA is used over most of the internet.. public and private key stuff. look here.. <BR> <A HREF="http://www.hack.gr/users/dij/crypto/overview/" TARGET=_blank>http://www.hack.gr/users/dij/crypto/overview/</A> <P>In the old days they used a one-time-pad.. and a code book, so long as the one time pad was not reused it was not possible to crack the code.. the allies tried to break the Sov. Code using a code book they found in a battle field in finland.. that was called <a href="http://www.nsa.gov:8080/docs/venona/index.html"> DRUG/VENONA </a> , early days VENONA was hard work, but it worked sometimes.. some people think VENONA was betrayed.. by philby and his pals.. subsequently the sov's changed their one time pads, and by late 60's VENONA was shut down. aur uske bad bahut kuch hua.. <a href="http://www.nsa.gov:8080/museum/index.html"> yahan dekho</a><P>[This message has been edited by sunil sainis (edited 27-09-1999).]<p>[This message has been edited by sunil sainis (edited 27-09-1999).]

[Sunil]

Salman, <P>>the re-use of books in the last days of the war by soviets.<P>some accounts say that they duplicated one time pads for their regular FO/Trade channels, and some for the ambassadorial channels in the early fifties, this aided in the VENONA effort. <P>Though VENONA was supersecret in its time.. <BR>At least one account by Meredith Gardner (Cryptographer for the U.S.Army) states that he personally saw H.A.R Philby visit the VENONA facility and meet people there, it possible then to assume that the VENONA program was probably betrayed. <P>I have heard stories that say that our people had penetrated pakistani field communication, i have read a story about how an officer of the PA of the rank of Major Gen. was killed in the western sector by accurate arty fire.. his call sign `Imam Baaz' was identified and a movement analysis offered a firing solution. <P>Does anyone know of any books on this? the D.K Palit book on 71 makes no mention of the intel. efforts, Asoke Raina says somethings but not in this regard, the same applies to firaanges who have written about 1971.. <BR>

[Kuttan]

When I become dictator, I will use these fancy systems to transmit loads of stuff, like entire newspaper web pages, threads from BR, etc. with the most fancy of algorithms. <P>I will send the real orders, and receive info, via Indian Post Office, or via people traveling on bicycles and bullock carts. . <P>Reasoning: <BR>1. No one can predict or track the movements of letters in Indian Post Office. <P>2. Considering that is GOI at at least one end of these transmissions, transmission speed is never the critical step or limiting speed. <P>The entire resources of the enemy will be taken up trying to decode stuff like the "Slaughter of Democracy" thread on BR, or, even better, the "If U were a Paki" thread.

[vverma]

Nice to see somebody else is having those "When I become a dictator..." dreams. I thought I was the only wierdo.

[Ved]

David, <P>about 896 bits!