debunking snake oil

[travis+ml-cryptography at subspacefield.org]

I think it might be fun to start up a collection of snake oil
cryptographic methods and cryptanalytic attacks against them.  It
would be more fun for me than crossword puzzles, and educational for
all the would-be cryptographers.

I'd like to start with the really simple stuff; classical
cryptography, systems with clean and obvious "breaks".  Although I
find the magazine entertaining to read, I'm finding that 2600 Magazine
is a particularly good source of this brand of snake oil.

So, when you find a particularly obnoxious dilettante going on about
his bone-headed unbreakable scheme, please forward it to me and I'll
see about breaking it, and then publish the schemes and the results on
a web site for publicly "educating" them.  Honestly, there's probably
no better way to educate people than to see schemes submitted and
broken, and I'm not sure there's a good site for it, although there
are plenty of books.  Unfortunately, these types won't be bothered to
buy books since they already know everything.

If you have a break of some scheme you wish to contribute, please
do forward me a URL and I'll link to it.

Perhaps this should be a wiki?

I'm revamping my web site, so the crypto wiki has been down
temporarily but will be back up.
-- 
<URL:http://www.subspacefield.org/~travis/> -><- dharma <>< advaita
For a good time on my UBE blacklist, email john at subspacefield.org.
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 825 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/attachments/20070830/dd342548/attachment.pgp>