Wikipedia:WikiProject Cryptography/CryptographyBlog

See Wikiportal/Cryptography for more recent crypto news. &mdash; Matt Crypto 22:31, 15 May 2005 (UTC) - This page is to note news items related to cryptography that have the potential to be added to various articles in order to keep things up-to-date.

Time: UTC   | Date: July 29

Bletchley Park cryptographer obituary
On 29 October Peter Twinn died; in WWII, he'd worked on solving various Enigma machines. &mdash; Matt 23:46, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Added to: Peter Twinn

Collisions found in many hash functions
MD5 among the list. Nikita Borisov 00:10, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * http://www.cryptography.com/cnews/hash.html
 * Others include SHA-0, MD4, HAVAL-128, and RIPEMD; I think we now have a note in each of these articles (apart from HAVAL). &mdash; Matt 22:05, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

RSA and factoring
Finding the RSA secret key proved deterministic polynomial time equivalent to factoring by Alexander May. Only of theoretical significance. Arvindn 00:52, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Can we add this to the article (RSA) ? &mdash; Matt 22:05, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Explaining the result would take about a paragraph, so I'm not sure if it's worth it. Arvindn 03:06, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Just to clarify this - The RSA problem has not been shown to be equivalent to factoring. What's been found is a deterministic algorithm for determining p and q given n, e, and d - a non-deterministic algorithm for this has long been known, so it's no big. ciphergoth 18:34, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)
 * I think an RSA problem article separate from RSA would be worthwhile (certainly, other encyclopedia's think so...) &mdash; Matt 22:49, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

NIST wants to phase out DES
According to NIST, DES is being "phased out". Although DES has been de facto dead for a decade (and arguably longer), apparently the standard won't be officially withdrawn until after September 2004, at least.
 * http://gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/26721-1.html
 * Added to: DES

&mdash; Matt 18:02, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * Finally. At long -- far too long -- last! ww 15:25, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

IEEE Approves 802.11i
A new standard for wireless security; I find this whole topic pretty confusing, especially trying to differentiate between WEP, WEP2, WPA, WPA2, 802.11i, TKIP, CCMP and the usual alphabet soup you get with standardisation efforts. Our whole coverage of wireless encryption could do with a revamp, to be honest, especially since the Fluhrer-Mantin-Shamir attack on WEP is quite a significant piece of "real-world" cryptanalysis.
 * http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/25/1850201
 * Potential to add information to: 802.11, Wi-fi, Wi-Fi Protected Access, WEP, Cryptanalysis
 * Added to:

&mdash; Matt 13:51, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Analysis of alleged US cryptanalysis
Impressively sane BBC News article discussing the recent claims about the US breaking Iranian ciphers, which includes discussion from Ross Anderson, Fred Piper and Simon Singh, suggesting it was unlikely to be pure cryptanalysis. Great quote from Anderson: "As the former chief scientist of the NSA once remarked at one of our security workshops, almost all breaks of cipher systems are due to implementation errors, operational failures, burglary, blackmail and bribery. As for cryptanalysis, it happens, but very much less often than most people think."
 * http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3804895.stm
 * Potential to add information to: Ahmed Chalabi, NSA
 * Added to: Cryptanalysis

&mdash; Matt 01:20, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I would note that Matt's characterization as 'impressively sane' is accurate only when compared to the usual run of wildly inaccurate (if not perhaps quite insane) articles in the popular (and even the technical -- non-cryptographic) press. In this case, there are many errors of mistatement, misimplication, and (I must presume) contracted quotation. It's just better than most, quite a bit better. 'Tis a sad state of affairs and one of the main reasons I've been contributing to the crypto corner here. Perhaps we should refer this reporter to our work on crypto? ww 16:48, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * I guess I was impressed with the way they distinguished between breaking Iranian ciphers (possibly, but unlikely) and between breaking the Iranian cryptosystems (more likely) &mdash; no one else seemed to bother mentioning the difference. &mdash; Matt 13:51, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)