Permanent Privacy - Snake Oil or unbreakable encryption?

Bill Squier groo at old-ones.com
Mon Jul 7 13:48:15 EDT 2008


On Jul 7, 2008, at 10:54 AM, Ali, Saqib wrote:

> Quoting the Foxbusiness article:
>
> "PermanentPrivacy announces the world's first practical data
> encryption system that is absolutely unbreakable. And is offering a
> $1,000,000 challenge to anyone who can crack it.
>
> Permanent Privacy (patent pending) has been verified by Peter
> Schweitzer, one of Harvard's top cryptanalysts, and for the inevitable
> cynics Permanent Privacy is offering $1,000,000 to anyone who can
> decipher a sample of ciphertext."

My favorite part of that web site is from their "How it Works" section:

---
``For example, suppose that the plain text message is simply one 5- 
letter word. At first glance, you would think that this must be easy  
to break. But there are, let us say, about 100 printable characters on  
a computer keyboard, so there are some 100x100x100x100x100 ways of  
producing a 5-letter word.''
---

So, let me get this straight.  You appear to be using a one-time pad,  
but you discard all output that the robotic hand you send me is unable  
to type on my keyboard?

-wps

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