[Cryptography] Is it time for a revolution to replace TLS?

[Dave Horsfall]

On Sat, 17 May 2014, Jerry Leichter wrote:

[...]

Another fine piece of computer history :-)  Keep it up, Jerry, otherwise 
the youngsters will be condemned to repeat mistakes from the past.  
You're making an old programmer very happy...

Computers are very good at breaking crypto; just ask Alan Turing.  His 
"bombe" was reading German High Command messages like newspapers.  
Whenever the key was changed there was a mad scramble to figure out the 
new one.

IIRC, the German Navy used the Enigma with an extra rotor, but it 
eventually was cracked.  Not only was a U-boat refueller sunk in the 
Indian Ocean, but so were the next seven subs that turned up.  German High 
Command suspected that Enigma was broken (that was somewhat blatant, after 
all), but Hitler refused to believe it.

All it takes is one screw-up such as re-using a key (to be fair, the 
operator probably had bombs dropping around his ears) and you now have the 
keys to the kingdom, as it were.  Or the more "direct action" method of 
bombing a water supply to help break the Japanese Purple...

I hope someone's archiving this list.

For the newcomers on this list, read anything by Schneier, Menenzes et al, 
Kahn, and Bamford.  There are probably others; from where I sit, I can see 
four crypto books.  No, make that five (I just saw my Singh)...

-- Dave, basking in computer history (I started with the PDP-8)