Snake Oil That Will Not Die

[R. A. Hettinga]

--- begin forwarded text


From: Eric Cordian <emc at artifact.psychedelic.net>
Old-Subject: Snake Oil That Will Not Die
To: cypherpunks at minder.net
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 06:56:51 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Snake Oil That Will Not Die
Sender: owner-cypherpunks at lne.com
Status: R

Oh look, it's a brand new fluff piece on Meganet and their Virtual Matrix
Encryption, deconstructed years ago in various forums, including this one.

http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/dir.1998.01.01-1998.01.07/msg00047.html

Why on earth is the Department of Labor giving them money?

Meganet now claims that "all other encryption methods have been
compromised" - except for theirs, of course.  Titter.

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enDispWho=Articles%5El306&enZone=Technology&enVersion=0&

-----

Company develops unbreakable data encryption code
By Nicky Blackburn   February 09, 2003

Meganet has won a $4 million tender to supply the U.S. Department of Labor
with information encryption and digital signatures for its 18,000
employees.

Meganet, an Israeli-U.S. data security company, has developed an
encryption technology that appears to be unbreakable, enabling governments
and corporations, to keep their data safely out of the hands of
competitors, thieves and saboteurs.

Among the clients that believe in their ability to protect sensitive
information is the U.S. government

...

Meganet Corporation's founder, Saul Backal, claims that its solution can
put an end to these problems. Meganet offers a patented non-linear data
mapping technology, called VME (Virtual Matrix Encryption), that creates
exceptionally random cipher text and combines it with a one million-bit
key, which is unheard of in today's data security markets. Competing
solutions offer a maximum of 256 bits.

"There is nothing stronger in existence," says 38-year-old Backal, a dual
Israeli-U.S. citizen who was a tank commander in the IDF in the Lebanon
war. "All other encryption methods have been compromised in the last five
to six years."

...

-- 
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"

--- end forwarded text


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

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