User talk:Matt Crypto/archive3

Featured_picture_candidates/Lake_Tanganyika
You wrote: Hi! I don't suppose you'd be willing to upload the large version of the image to the Commons? . But it's a nice shot, regardless! &mdash; Matt 14:12, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for the kind comment! When you say the large version, do you mean the 700x462 version which is the largest online at the moment, or the 3500x2500 I mentioned being able to produce?  If the former, I will certainly consider it (don't know much about the commons, need to read about it), but if the latter then there are two problems - a) not sure I'd want to upload such a high-res file under a GFDL license, and b) can't find the original slide at the moment so can't scan in at highest resolution anyway :)Worldtraveller 22:27, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Oh, OK, I did mean the latter. I'm curious &mdash; why not GFDL a high-res file when you're willing to GFDL a low-res one? Of course, how you license the images is up to you, but I'm just interested in the reasons for the distinction. &mdash; Matt 00:07, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Well it's just a bit of paranoia really. A 3500x2500px image would be high enough quality for most printed media etc, and I don't really want to release such a large image under a permissive license like GFDL.  700x462 on the other hand is only really appropriate for online use, where I'm happy to release it under GFDL.  But I will consider it, and may decide to upload the large version in this case (if I find the original slide!).
 * By the way, I don't know if you'd seen that I uploaded a less compressed version of the image. You'd pointed out the JPEG artefacts on the original - hopefully the current version doesn't suffer the same problems, it doesn't appear to on this monitor. Worldtraveller 17:20, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WikiReader Cryptography - article of the day
I was wondering, is the yellow bar for the current article coded variable, or do you have to change the bar on a daily basis? The code of the table isn't really helping me. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 15:51, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
 * I would like to do something similar for my Magic Project. Is it hard to learn the coding involved in Python, and could I possibly get your current code as an example? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 20:46, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)
 * I've never done any Python coding. Should I put that code on a subpage like any other and where should I put the input file? [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 21:52, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

National Health Service
You voted for National Health Service, this week's UK Collaboration of the week. Please come and help it become a featured-standard article. -- Graham &#9786; | Talk 11:35, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(Drdefcom)
Hi Matt, I have added the comments on the rather confusing double step and the 4th rotor and plugboard. Thanks for correnting my poor english. I'm just logged in with a new account (Drdefcom) so I'm new and don't know very well how to get in contact with you.

I Hope this arrives, I saw your talk on my page and I start understanding the priciple. Dit you check out my link to the 'Simulator for windows'? wrote it in VB, and is a sourcecode contest winner! Not one of many sims, but a real reference to enigma, completely compatible in working and handling(you can open the cover, lift out rotors, change their ringsettings etc). Had some greate tips of Tom Perera and Frode Weierud. If you should install it, use F1 for help. My mailadress is in the helpfiles 'about this sim' page if you want to cantact me ;-) hope you now get my drdefcom name with thos tilts Drdefcom 15:40, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi,

Can you explane me how te add a pic. I Have drawn a good wiring diagram of the enigma that would explain a lot about its function, but don't know how to add it to the article. Tks in advance Drdefcom 16:59, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Additional technical details Enigma
Hi Matt,

Since I don't see any details on the Enigma rotors in the article, I pass them to you. You are better used to add things, so I will let it up to you to decide 'if and what to put where'. Do whatever you want with the info. There is a list with rotor wirings and all notch and turnover information included.

PS: if you hit F1 on the sim you get the helpfile wit the manual, enjoy it !

Rotor types

On the M4 Model, the wide reflector from the 3-rotor model is replaced by a thin reflector and a special 4th rotor is placed against it. The 4th rotor can be type &#8220;Beta&#8221; or &#8220;Gamma&#8221;. To be compatible with the 3-rotor Army model and the older Navy M3 model, the thin B reflector with the Beta rotor will encode compatible messages, this only when the three other rotors and settings are identical and the Beta's ring and start position are both set to &#8216;A&#8217;. The 4th rotor never steps, but can be manually placed in any of the 26 positions.

Following the electrical signal through the Enigma

If we talk about rotor positions, the following notation is commonly used: V, I, III means that the left rotor is type V, the middle type I, and the right is a type III. To follow the electrical signal, there are several important issues. First of all, pressing a letter will first advance the rotors, and then encrypt (light up) the letter. If the start position is AAA, the pressed letter will pass the rotors AAB and not AAA as you would expect.

The signal goes from the keyboard to the plugs. These plugs can swap letters before they proceed to the entry-rotor or 'Eintrittwalze'. Inserting a plug will disconnect the upper jack (from the keyboard) and the lower jack (to the entry-rotor) of that letter. The crosswired cable that is plugged at the other end into another letter's jacks will switch the connections of the two letters.

From the entry-rotor, the signal passes through the right, middle and left rotors, to be returned by the reflector or 'Umkehrwalze', back into the left, middle and right rotors. It goes back into the entry-wheel and passes the plugs and the bi-directional switch of the target key to light-up the target lamp. Since the reflector connects each letter with another, it is impossible that a letter is encrypted into itself.

The ringsettings or 'Ringstellung' are used to change the position of the internal wiring relative to the rotor. They do not change the notch or the alphabet ring on the exterior. Those are fixed to the rotor. Changing the ringsetting will therefore change the positions of the wiring, relative to the turnover-point and start position.

Definition of &#8220;offset&#8221;

As example, let us take rotor type I without any ringsetting offset. You can see that an 'A' is encoded as an 'E', a 'B' encoded as a K, and a 'K' is encoded as an 'N'. Notice that every letter is encoded into any another.

In case of the reflectors, we take Wide B where an 'A' is returned as a 'Y' and the 'Y' is returned as an 'A'. Notice that the wirings are connected each time as a loop between two letters.

When a rotor has stepped, you must take in account the offset to know what the output is, and where it enters the next rotor. If for example rotor I is in the B-position, an 'A' enters at the letter 'B' which is wired to the 'K'. Because of the offset this 'K' enters the next rotor in the 'J' position.

The ringsetting will rotate the wiring. Where rotor I in the A-position normally encodes an 'A' into an 'E', with a ringsetting offset B-02 it will be encoded into 'K'

As mentioned before these encodings only happen after the key is pressed and the rotor has turned. Tracing the signal on the rotors AAA is therefore only possible if a key is pressed while the rotors where in the position AAZ.

Rotor wiring tables

Rotors Kriegsmarine/Wehrmacht/Luftwaffe (3-rotor model)

I  = EKMFLGDQVZNTOWYHXUSPAIBRCJ

II = AJDKSIRUXBLHWTMCQGZNPYFVOE

III = BDFHJLCPRTXVZNYEIWGAKMUSQO

IV = ESOVPZJAYQUIRHXLNFTGKDCMWB

V  = VZBRGITYUPSDNHLXAWMJQOFECK

Rotors used by Kriegsmarine only (3-rotor M3 and 4-rotor M4 model)

VI = JPGVOUMFYQBENHZRDKASXLICTW

VII = NZJHGRCXMYSWBOUFAIVLPEKQDT

VIII= FKQHTLXOCBJSPDZRAMEWNIUYGV

''Zuzatzwalzen or Greek rotors used by Kriegsmarine. To be inserted before thin reflectors only.''

Beta = LEYJVCNIXWPBQMDRTAKZGFUHOS

Gamma = FSOKANUERHMBTIYCWLQPZXVGJD

Wide reflectors Wehrmacht/Luftwaffe

Reflector B = YRUHQSLDPXNGOKMIEBFZCWVJAT

Reflector C = FVPJIAOYEDRZXWGCTKUQSBNMHL

Thin reflectors Kriegsmarine

Reflector B Thin = ENKQAUYWJICOPBLMDXZVFTHRGS

Reflector C Thin = RDOBJNTKVEHMLFCWZAXGYIPSUQ

The rotor advance mechanism

The rotors appear to work as a normal odometer, but there are some important differences, due to the system of pawls and levers. If the turnover point of rotor type I is Q, this means that the next left rotor will advance one step when the right rotor steps from Q to R. For the first five rotors, you can use the mnemonic "Royal Flags Wave Kings Above", or RFWKA for the letters that are visible after the turnover. In addition, and this is important, the middle rotor will advance on the next step of the first rotor a second time in a row, if the middle rotor is in it's own turnover position. This is called the double-step. This results in a sequence as in this example:

KDP, KDQ, KER, LFS (Rotors III,II,I are used in this example)

As you can observe, stepping from Q to R advances the middle rotor, and on the next step it steps again, advancing the third rotor also. The reason for this strange behavior is rather simple.

There are three levers that are all engaged when each letter is pressed. Each lever is half positioned on the index ring (the one that has a notch) of the rotor on its right, and half positioned above the 26 ratchets of the rotor on its left (viewed from the point of the operator). Since the right lever is not above an index ring it will always engage the right rotor.

Once the right rotor has stepped and the middle (spring-loaded) lever can drop down in the right rotor's notch, it will engage the middle rotor's ratchet, advancing the middle rotor one step. The same event will take place when the middle rotor's notch enables the left lever to engage the ratchets of the left (third) rotor.

However, an important event will now take place. A rotor will not only advance if its ratchets are engaged, but also when a lever pushes into its notch. We now have a complete sequence of a middle rotor double-step: The right rotor steps, and takes the middle rotor one step further. If the middle rotor has moved by this step into its own notch-position, on the next step the right lever pushes the ratchet of the right rotor, and it will also push the middle rotor one step further, advancing it a second time in a row.

Note on notches: Rotors VI, VII & VIII have two notches.

Turnover positions

I  = Q (if rotor steps from Q to R, the next rotor is advanced)

II = E (if rotor steps from E to F, the next rotor is advanced)

III = V (if rotor steps from V to W, the next rotor is advanced)

IV = J (if rotor steps from J to K, the next rotor is advanced)

V  = Z (if rotor steps from Z to A, the next rotor is advanced)

VI, VII & VIII = Z + M (if rotor steps from Z to A, or from M to N the next rotor is advanced) Drdefcom 19:21, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Protocol (cryptography)
Hey, sorry I got the disambiguate at Public-key cryptography wrong - I didn't even realize there was a Protocol (cryptography) until I'd done a bunch of the articles (incorrectly) linked to plain Protocol. I've gone back to check "What links here" on Protocol (computing) and I think I've got all the ones that should be to the crypto one instead. Noel (talk) 04:21, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wiring diagram Enigma
Hi matt,

Thanks for the tip about pic quality, changed it immediatly in PNG (still had the original, I created with paint!) and it looks better now (less fuzzy). Nice of you to check my work and clean it up a bit. All help is welcome, thanks! Did you get the sims cover open and the rotors out? ;-) PS: have a pic of a programmable D reflector, would be nice, but have to ask first if I can use it...


 * Forgot to ask, is there a way to delete that large and unused wiring jpg? Or do I leave it just there to grow old ? Dirk 19:39, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Turing
Matt, regarding the Turing photo, wouldn't any copyright have expired? This is a photo used everywhere on the Internet and in books about Turing. Is there a reason you think someone still holds the copyright? Slim 22:22, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Debate about deleting an image
Greetings. There is a spirited debate going on here about whether or not to delete Image:Nevada-Tan.jpg for privacy reasons. Since you have recently voiced an opinion on Divulging personal details, I thought you might be interested in weighing in. – Quadell (talk) (help)  18:46, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Legend for Crypto-Diagrams
Hi Matt,

thanks for your conrtibutions so far. I wonder If there is some legend for your crypto-diagrams. Some elements are selfexplanatory, but others arent. It would be nice to have a legend.


 * No, not yet, but I really should make one (or expand the captions/descriptions); while most of the time I follow the notation used in the crypto literature, can't really expect people to be familiar with it! &mdash; Matt Crypto 01:23, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Civility - a two-way street
Hi; I'm afraid I don't appreciate your sarcastic tone on Peer Review. I quite politely pointed you to Civility, a policy that I believe is of great importance in a collaborative project like Wikipedia. You say, "Oh, please, get over yourself." I don't know what you mean exactly, but I would urge you to take the policy seriously. To quote, "Civility is a rule here on Wikipedia. Where incivility here is defined as behavior that causes an atmosphere of animosity, disrespect, conflict and stress, the Civility rule states that people must act with civility toward one another." &mdash; Matt Crypto 13:08, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Cool. Your unsolicited advice has been noted, logged, and discarded. Now maybe you can practice what you preach and save your univited schoolmarm act for where it might be welcomed -- which is not by myself. If you want to pick fights by hectoring people, I can't stop you -- you go right ahead, but I find that your sneering tone to be extraordinarily disrespectful and a pretty good source of animosity, to boot. If you have a problem, open an RFC and be done with it. --Calton 05:49, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * All I have done is ask you to follow a Wikipedia policy. Moreover, contacting you is one of the suggestions on Civility: "Apply peer pressure (voicing displeasure each time rudeness or incivility happens)". It's regrettable if you've perceived my posts to be sneering, disrespectful or brimming with animosity &mdash; such a tone  was not intended. My point is only this: Wikipedia works when people treat each other with a certain level of respect; a hostile environment drives away some editors and ties up the time of others in endless flamewars. &mdash; Matt Crypto  11:27, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I've responded to your message, told that I read it, understood it, and rejected your unsolicited advice as unwelcome and even -- how do I put this? causing animosity -- and yet you persist. You've done your duty, and if you were sincerely just giving advice...well, you've done that already and if you were sincere you would have just shrugged and walked away.


 * Yet, expressing some misguided notion that it's your duty, somehow, to apply "peer pressure", you continue the hectoring, not merely quoting the Wikipedia guidelines, but preaching, like some sacred-word peddler or political fanatic, to make me fall into line with whatever standard of decorum that you carry in your head. Which tells me civility is not your goal, being holier-than-thou is. Perhaps you can go and find some children to practice your parenting skills on.


 * To repeat, slightly modified: Your unsolicited schoolmarmery has been noted, logged, and rejected. Ignored. Tossed into the circular file. Sent to the bit bucket. Consigned to the scrap heap. Recycled with extreme prejudice. "Talk to the hand, 'cause the head ain't listening." Capice?


 * If you have a problem, open an RFC and be done with it. If it's not worth an RFC, then put a sock in it and just go away. --Calton 13:09, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I'd also like to point you to another Wikipedia policy, No personal attacks. &mdash; Matt Crypto 13:18, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Videos
Matt, please don't edit the links to the Bigley murder back into Kenneth Bigley. I have put up an RfC about this and we should wait to see what the consensus is. I've also put up a query on the mailing list and I got a response from Jimbo Wales. I've added that info to the Talk page. Please wait another day or two, then all interested editors can have a discussion about (a) whether to include the information and (b) if so, then in what way. Slim 22:13, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Fish split/rename
Wow, you were quick! I went to fix "list of crypto topics" and you'd already done it! :-) Anyway, I think it's all straight now. I will check the list of "what links here" on "FISH (crypto)" and make sure any that are to the modern cipher get moved. The rest I will leave for the moment - no point in editing pages gratuitously. I will fix them as I touch them. I have some more material to add to the WWII Fish page, will do that after I come back from dinner.
 * Ah, thanks for splitting the page and sorting out the various redirects! &mdash; Matt Crypto 23:38, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Crypto feature page
I think the one to shoot for is the Tunny page. (We may wind up splitting that into several as was done for the Enigma stuff). The reason I think that's a good one is that most people know of the Enigma break, but the Tunny achievement is nowhere near as well known. It was just as important (in terms of product), if not more so, and it was also a more impressive accomplishment, as they had no help (no captured machines, no spy info, no wheel setting lists, no nothing). Pretty amazing feat, really. Noel (talk) 23:16, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, the Tunny stuff was remarkable! I think it would make a good target Featured Article, that and/or Colossus, since they're very interrelated. I'll take the "General Report on Tunny" home with me for Christmas reading &mdash; I'm off on Friday, but I'll see if I can come up with a diagram for the logical operation of the Lorenz machine before then. &mdash; Matt Crypto 23:36, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * This page by Tony Sale has a pretty good diagram at the bottom. It was only when I looked at this that it became crystal clear to me that each individual bit of each parallel 5-bit byte of the enciphered text is only affected by only two wheels - in particular, the same Chi wheel at all times. ( There's some complexity with the Psi wheels I don't completely grok yet - I think there was provision for crossing bits over, but I might be wrong about that. I'm not sure Tony's picture is 100% right, if so. I'm sure about the Chis, though.) It was this that really enabled the British to break it. (In other words, the entire Chi key-sequence, as a series of bytes, was 23x26x29x31x41 bytes long, but when you look at each bit individually, the key-sequence for that bit on the Chi-wheels was only 23 or 26 or whatever bits long. A hole the size of a barn door...)
 * Tony's site has a lot of other good stuff on it, e.g. about the Robinsons, and about Colossus. I have looked over it pretty thoroughly and have a large stack of bookmarks I need to work into various articles.
 * The articles that are reprinted in the "Cryptology" books (I added the refs on the T52 page) are also pretty good; clearer than the Tunny document, but with more technical detail than Tony's page. Do you have them? Noel (talk) 01:25, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Oops, minor case of brain fade - of course Tunny was not the T52. The two non-T52 articles in Cryptology: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow do cover the Tunny machine (SZ40), but not in much detail. I will make sure that the appropriate pages have all the right refs.
 * So other than the Tunny report, the Tony Sale pages, and all the original documents here has there (such as the Tutte's Fish and I, and all the stuff listed at the bottom of this page) there's not much, but it's enough. Tony has some more useful stuff here, and there's also a PDF file, but I've lost where I found it. I'll put all these links up on the right pages.
 * I'm pretty sure that the Tunny machine did not move (or mix) the bits around in the output stream - i.e. bit 1 of the output only ever depended on bit 1 of the input. (It was the T52 that could mix things around.) The only complexity in the SZ40 is that the second set of wheels (Psi) didn't step on every character. (Although this turned out to be a flaw that helped break it, actually - see Tony Sale's writeup.) That, plus each bit being kept separate, plus the fact that each group of wheels (Chi and Psi) always stepped as a group. Noel (talk) 02:50, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Found that PDF file - I was confused, it was on the BP site, here. Mildly useful. Noel (talk) 03:56, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Tony Sale's site is great; it's easily the best technical BP site on the Web. I've got a bunch of Colossus / Tunny references at User:Matt Crypto/reading bookmarks, not all of which I've been able to get my hands on yet! Davies' The Lorenz Cipher Machine SZ42 is notable for giving some information about the actual mechanics of the machine. &mdash; Matt Crypto 09:17, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Chief Mkwawa

 * Moved to Talk:Chief Mkwawa.

Classical ciphers
I've given this question a bit of thought, but as crypto isn't my area of expertise I thought I'd seek another opinion: how secure is Playfair, after a simple columnar transposition to ensure diffusion? I would think it resistant to the basic cryptanalysis axioms (thanks to the transposition), but it's very likely that I've overlooked something; if I have, how is it most vulnerable, and what pen-and-paper cipher scheme&mdash;given basic constraints on time required and mental math&mdash;would serve better in its place? Most of my better ideas rely on memorized tables and/or repetition, and none seem especially practical.

Excellent work with the crypto articles, by the way. I'll see about chipping in over Christmas break. A. D. Hair (t&m) 15:13, dec 23, 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks, and it'd be great to have you help out on crypto articles (I'll plug WikiReader/Cryptography here!).


 * You could certainly attack a "Playfair then columnar transposition"-cipher using a known-plaintext attack, and likely a ciphertext-only attack too, if the ciphertext was long enough. Essentially, you'd try and crack the transposition first, rearranging the plaintext until the distribution of digrams approaches that of plaintext (the distribution of sequential pairs of letters is left invariant by Playfair, more or less) &mdash; if you had known plaintext, this would be a lot easier. Once you'd stripped off the transposition, you could then break Playfair on its own.


 * It's very difficult to create a hand cipher that's secure in the sense of modern cryptography, that is, secure against things like chosen plaintext attacks and computer-aided cryptanalysis. Some people have tried to come up with hand ciphers that are secure against modern cryptanalysis techniques, for example, Bruce Schneier's Solitaire scheme, which uses a pack of cards (I think someone found weaknesses in that scheme though). The one time pad would be unbreakable, of course, but it's pretty awkward to generate and exchange the pads. &mdash; Matt Crypto  17:58, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Hm, at what message length do you think a ciphertext-only attack would be feasible? Chosen plaintext can usually be avoided, I think, given due consideration, and at any rate I think it fares better than the traditional metric: the double columnar transposition.  It's something to think about, anyway, and I'll see if I can't dream up a better solution.  A. D. Hair (t&m) 12:55, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

Hyphenated title
Please see Wikipedia talk about the random-number-generator-naming question. --Smack 20:36, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images
Hi. You uploaded Image:Data Encryption Standard 280px.png and Image:Data Encryption Standard 320px.png but did not list any source and/or copyright information on the image description page. Please mark it either as GFDL or public domain. See Image_copyright_tags for more info. Please note that images without copyright information may be deleted in the future. Thanks. RedWolf 17:33, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)

Any chances of doing Article stats again?
I'd really appreciate it if you could do another stats thing for me. All I've done is copy and paste part of my own page to do the following list. Obviously feel free to remove it! One Salient Oversight 10:52, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * (list trimmed)

Allied SIGINT in World War II
I had previously suggested (on Talk:Ultra) that it would be nice to have an article titled Allied SIGINT in World War II or some such title, (with alternative titles Allied cryptanalytic intelligence in World War II, etc) which gives a brief overview of the whole field, and references all the appropriate lesser articles. I have looked for such an article again (e.g. by checking all links to Ultra - which disclosed some bogus links,but no such article), but found none. To your knowledge, does Wikipedia have any article that covers this? If not, I'll whip one up (having recently re-read almost all the WWII literature). Any alternative and/or superiour titles gratefully accepted! Noel (talk) 19:36, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Not as far as I'm aware, and it sounds like it would be a good idea. I did dump a set of links into World War II cryptography a while back (possibly for a WikiReader on World War II), but it hasn't got very far. &mdash; Matt Crypto 00:09, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, I'll start work on it. That list of links is very helpful! Noel (talk) 21:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

User:Frank_A
 * hi Matt, you moved some info on the TICOM / Abwehr commando to Enigma decrypt history which is ok and asked for a source. James Bamford writes in his book "body of secrets" random house , on NSA about this incident of may 21st 1945. seems like history repeated itself a bit: the brits neglected enigma and got briefed by the poles, the americans neglected fish/KGB crypto-tech and got briefed by the Abwehr to be offset to proper working knowledge.

Cryptographic Dictionary Alphabetical index
You might find User:Jnc/CryptoDictIndex useful - it's an alphabetical index to the Cryptographic Dictionary, July 1944 at http://www.alanturing.net. Noel (talk) 21:25, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Cool. There's a number of interesting documents on that site, and I really should read all of these documents at some stage. &mdash; Matt Crypto 00:07, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Empty to do list
Hi! Would you mind terribly if I deleded the empty "To do" list that you put on Talk:Voynich manuscript last month? There is a whole screenful of boxes on that page before you get to the contents, and since it's such a mature article, it seems unlikely ever to require an entire "laundry list" of to do items. Of course, if a whole list of items actually does come up, we can always add it back. Thanks. PRiis 04:24, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Oh, certainly feel free to remove it, particularly for that article; I mass-tagged the various "WikiReader Cryptography" articles with to-do lists, but it's not hugely important. &mdash; Matt Crypto 23:47, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! PRiis 14:43, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Bible article
The subject of including a discussion of the Tetragramaton in the Bible article has come up again. An anonymous user continues to insert a lengthy section discussing the number of times it is used, how translations translate it, etc. Since you've commented on this before, I thought you might want to weigh in again. Jayjg |  (Talk)  19:17, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Image Source
Thanks for the head's up on that but as it turns out I put the wrong tag on the picture in my absentmindedness. I took the picture myself and have changed the liscenece to the GFLD accordingly. Thanks for the heads up.

On a lighter note I'd like to thank you for all your contribution to the Enigma article! It made the research for my project on the machine go so much faster! Its a small wikiworld after all eh?

[[User:Consequencefree| Ardent &dagger; &isin; ]] 06:02, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh dear now you're going to think I'm crazy for having so many pictures of post-it notes on my computer. I uploaded the wrong file that a. looks nearly identical and b. was named the exact same thing =P  Anywayz problem solved, thanks once again for the head's up!  (You probably saved my life somewhere down the line on wiki!) [[User:Consequencefree| Ardent &dagger; &isin; ]] 01:01, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Voynich Manuscript
I simply took the images of the article from a website, and gave them no credit. I was asking about a copyright issue, of when a image of a public domain document is also public domain. Either if a image of a public domain document was also free, and what if it was an image of a public domain building. And what if I took a pict of a copyrighted (patented) object if I could put the pic in PD. I got no definitive answer...--Alexandre Van de Sande 12:48, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

HELP !
Hi matt, i'm calling you for help on a problem i have on my dutch (nl) wiki. I have made a change there on my preferences there (page always above edit window) and since then all my menu's and buttons are in swedisch or norwegion or whatever it is. When I try to click my preferences i get an error. (this is all on nl.wikipedia) Do you have a sulution ???Dirk 15:50, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

New Mathematics Wikiportal
I noticed you've done some work on Mathematics articles. I wanted to point out to you the new Mathematics Wikiportal- more specifically, to the Mathematics Collaboration of the Week page. I'm looking for any math-related stubs or non-existant articles that you would like to see on Wikipedia. Additionally, I wondered if you'd be willing to help out on some of the Collaboration of the Week pages.

I encourage you to vote on the current Collaboration of the Week, because I'm very interested in which articles you think need to be written or added to, and because I understand that I cannot do the enormous amount of work required on some of the Math stubs alone. I'm asking for your help, and also your critiques on the way the portal is set up.

Please direct all comments to my user-talk page, the Math Wikiportal talk page, or the Math Collaboration of the Week talk page. Thanks a lot for your support! ral315 02:54, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Edit: I didn't mean to post this to your talk page; I just posted it to a large amount of users who have edited math-related articles. For what it's worth, though, I would suggest you check out the Collaboration of the Week page if you haven't already. ral315 03:45, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Rozycki
The pics were published befor 1994 so i will change them to polish-pd, but also several museums are owner of the pics, so the pics are also pd - but i will change them to polish-pd, its better :)--Emax 14:18, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

Playfair and four-square ciphers
I liked what you added to the history of Playfair, the pictures make it a much more accessible article. I went ahead and put up a page for Four-square ciphers and I'll get a two-square one up soon as I can. They're both sort of derivative of the Playfair, as no one really ever uses them on account of their being more work to encrypt and decrypt and not significantly more secure. :)  --Mouser 23:12, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

MIT
I just figured it's more efficient to bypass the redirect, and guard against the possibility that the MIT page is turned into a disambiguation page. I never thought of it as cluttering the Wikicode... Anyway, I'll stop. It's not necessary anyway. TheCoffee

Ultra compartmentalization
The Enigma-decryption efforts of the 1930s and '40s were compartmentalized. Accordingly it does seem fitting that current studies of those efforts, as I think you suggest, also be compartmentalized in subject matter (while retaining indispensable links, as then). It's good to see the whole Enigma-decryption epic presented comprehensively on the Wikipedia! Logologist 07:53, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your Feb. 28, 2005, note bringing my attention to WikiProject Cryptography/February 2005. It's good working with you.  Glad to see the Enigma/Ultra story treated seriously and comprehensively.  Logologist 07:02, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

DES cracker
See http://cryptome.org/cracking-des.htm and search for "project was budgeted". It was $210,000, which is closer to 200K (but, of course, "under 250K"). I'm not going to start an argument over it, though. Pakaran 17:10, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

On a tangent, I notice that SHA family lists the alleged SHA-1 break, which has yet to be published or receive formal review (Schneier notes in his blog only that the paper "looks good" and has reputable authors). Do you think we should make it more obvious that this is an unconfirmed result? Also, what algorithms have little in common with the SHA family and aren't already broken, in the event that this is an issue? Scneier says that SHA-1 is now broken as a hash function for signatures, but breaking signatures involves finding a collision with one of the few possible hashes that have been signed, not finding a collision on any hash - am I missing something here? Pakaran 17:39, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * To clarify, I'm asking at least somewhat out of personal curiousity, I'm considering studying crypto in grad school. Pakaran 17:40, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Oops, never mind that last part about it being broken - it is - I failed to read Birthday attack. Pakaran 17:45, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I replied at my talk page, in case you missed it, and made some additions to the SHA family article. Pakaran 19:00, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yep, prudence is good. I think one of my big objectives with the masters is to figure out what my specific interests are. Crypto is one, but a lot of things seem like they might be interesting to look at. The masters is largely taught-course, but includes a thesis equivalent to 6 quarter hours (or a smaller project, but that isn't an option if you're PhD bound). Most places here in the states have significant course requirements for a PhD too, though exceptions exist.

Knee-jerk reversions
Not every edit to "your" articles is vandalism that is to be reverted on sight, you know. OAEP is a redirect to Optimal Asymmetric Encryption Padding, as per the article naming conventions on acronyms, and I'm just snapping the redirects to save time when OAEP becomes a disambiguation page, as it surely will (c.f. SSL). By reverting, you are simply making work for other editors to do, re-doing all of what I've just done, down the road. If you want to not display the full article name in the link, then please extend your editing skills by learning to make piped links, in addition to knowing how to hit that revert button. Please also learn the correct procedure, given at WP:CP, for putting up copyright violation notices. I fixed your notice at Optimal Asymmetric Encryption Padding to be in the correct form, and did the listing for you, but it was just luck that I happened to be on patrol at the time and spotted the page. Again, please don't make work for other editors. Uncle G 20:12, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)
 * Hi UncleG. I have to say that this message is rather hostile. Sorry if I've offended you, but I think you're being rather unfair. First: "Knee-jerk reversions" &mdash; not so, I resisted any impulse to do it straight away and waited a few hours. Second: I don't consider articles to be "mine"; while I do spend a lot of time editing crypto articles, I'd prefer have more people working on these articles, and I'm always willing to discuss things. Third: I'm aware that we have a procedure for noting copyvios. However, I noticed it last thing at night (1am) and was too tired to go through the procedure. Rather than forgetting about it, I added a harmless comment to the page, to save me having to dig up the link again the following morning, and then promptly crashed into bed. It's good that you saved me the trouble, but it would have got done anyway. Fourth: I am aware of how to use the piped link syntax. Fifth: I believe that OAEP should either be the name of the page on the padding-topic, or redirect Optimal Asymmetric Encryption Padding. I don't imagine there's a need for equal disambiguation here, even if we should get other "OAEP" topics at some point. Sixth: The reason I reverted your changes is that we likely want the text to say "OAEP" &mdash; I believe it's mostly used in acronym form, like NASA. Before your change they did this; now they don't &mdash; I suggest they be changed back. It seems you didn't take kindly to being reverted, but I figured you wouldn't be particularly interested given that the page in question is going to be deleted soon, anyway. &mdash; Matt Crypto 21:26, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

SHA-1
Looks like we were editing at the same time. I rewrote the SHA-1 attack paragraph, but it seems to be missing now. Do you see it hidden in the history somewhere I don't? --hoho
 * Ah, we might have had a so-called "editing conflict" -- thankfully quite rare, but the software should have dealt with it and reported back to you? It doesn't appear to be in the history, unfortunately, at any rate. If you want to try again, I won't edit the article for a while, to keep things simple!
 * (A quick tip: you can "sign" your messages by typing four tildes in a row, that is, ~, in your messages. The software will substitute your name and the date for you.) &mdash; Matt Crypto 00:10, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
 * Strange, but I guess stuff like that is bound to happen. I'm done, have at it. Hoho 00:44, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Copyright clearing
Hi. I would like to use Image:Chip300.jpg under the CC-By-SA-2 licence. Are you the copyright owner? Can you relicense this photo? I will use it on my site. Thanks, answer to my talk page. It's a great pic. NSK 02:05, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

music markup
Hello Matt. We started a nice discussion on how to bring music to our wiki, and we reached good and positive solutions. now we're voting (more like a poll) and everyone seems to think it would be nice. But we need some power users there, to make it happen. I would appreciatte if you could hang a bit to Music markup and vote at the talk page... thanks --Alexandre Van de Sande 21:38, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

DRM POV
OK, I gave my feedback. I would fix the problems myself, but I don't have time. Is it cool with you to put back on until someone does have time to fix it? Thanks. --Mkn1234 01:14, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

ElGamal picture
Hi. the picture i put there is from the arabic wikipedia and after all it's just a personal picture which non-copyrightable i think! --Mido ar 20:16, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Robert Ouko
Thanks re the article I started on Robert Ouko. I saw it on your to do list from 'what links here' after I wrote it - weird that I only posted it 15 minutes after your Nicholas Biwott article. At the moment it doesn't have much on his political career, just his death, so if you know anything about that you could improve it, although I'll try and research it a bit more when I have a chance. Andy Smith (talk) 16:00, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

User Pic
Hi! I just ran across your user pic and, as part of wikipedia's image tagging project, I'm marking that it's yours and that you release it into the public domain. If this is at all inaccurate, please feel free to correct it. --InShaneee 18:33, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your message
I appreciate your appreciation. :) I left a mostly off-the-crypto-topic response on my talk page (for continuity), so feel free to read that at your leisure. - Taxman 19:07, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)