RSA Broken by the Russians?
Timothy C. May
material appears to be too timely not to post to these newsgroups.
Sorry if you've seen it before.
From: tcmay (Timothy C. May)
Subject: (fwd) Russians Break RSA?
To: cyphe...@toad.com
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 01:15:32 -0800 (PST)
Cc: tcmay (Timothy C. May)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
Status: O
Friends,
I just grabbed this of the ClariNet news feed on Netcom...I'm not
supposed to forward anything from this service (so don't tell Brad
Templeton!), but this appeared to be too important not to pass on as
quickly as possible.
Apparently those rumors that the Russians, always topnotch
mathematicians, had developed public key crypto in the 1950s or early
60s are true--my hero Kolmogorov developed this when he was technical
director at Kryptogorodok, the secret city of Soviet cryptographers
hidden in the Urals (and first visited by an outsider, Stephen
Wolfram, only a couple of years ago).
Here's the report on a news conference announcing the cracking of
their Kolmogorov system, which is equivalent to our own RSA. I haven't
had a chance to talk to John Markoff, who was at the press conference,
to get his comments.
--Tim
> Xref: netcom.com clari.world.europe.eastern:2783
> clari.news.hot.ussr:3792
> clari.
> news.trouble:3258 clari.science.crypto
> Path: netcom.com!bass!clarinews
> Approved: do...@clarinet.com
> From: clar...@clarinet.com (AP)
> Newsgroups:
> clari.world.europe.eastern,clari.news.hot.ussr,clari.news.trouble,clari.sc
> ience.crypto
> Distribution: clari.apo
> Subject: Russian Mathematicians Announce Breakthrough
> Keywords: Europe Cryptography RSA
> Copyright: 1994 by The Associated Press, R
> Message-ID: <russia-cryp...@clarinet.com>
> Date: Fri, 1 Apr 94 10:40:19 PST
> Expires: Mon, 18 Apr 94 12:40:19 PDT
> ACategory: international
> Slugword: Russia-Crypto
> Priority: regular
> ANPA: Wc: 116/0; Id: V0255; Src: ap; Sel: -----; Adate: 03-14-N/A
> Codes: APO-1103
>
>
> MOSCOW (AP) -- At a press conference held minutes ago in a
> crowded hall, Russian mathematicians announced that a breakthrough had
> been made nearly a decade ago in the arcane branch of mathematics
> known as "cryptography," the science of making messages that are
> unreadable to others.
> Leonid Vladwylski, Director of the prestigious Moscow Academy
> of Sciences, called the press conference yesterday, after rumors began
> circulating that noted Russian-American reporter John Markoff was in
> Russia to interview academicians at the previously secret city of
> Soviet cryptographers, Kryptogorodok. The existence of Kryptogorodok,
> sister city to Akademogorodok, Magnetogorsk, and to the rocket cities
> of Kazhakstan, had been shrouded in secrecy since its establishment in
> 1954 by Chief of Secret Police L. Beria. Its first scientific
> director, A. Kolmogorov, developed in 1960 what is called in the West
> "public key cryptography." The existence of Kryptogorodok was unknown
> to the West until 1991, when Stephen Wolfram disclosed its existence.
> American cryptographers initially scoffed at the rumors that
> the Russians had developed public-key cryptography as early as 1960,
> some 15 years prior to the first American discovery. After interviews
> last year at Kryptogorodok, noted American cryptographers Professor
> D. Denning and D. Bowdark admitted that it did seem to be
> confirmed. Professor Denning was quoted at the time saying that she
> did not think this meant the Russians could actually break the
> Kolmogorov system, known in the West as RSA, because she had spent
> more than a full weekend trying to do this and had not
> succeeded. "Believe me, RSA is still unbreakable," she said in her
> evaluation report.
> Russia's top mathematicians set out to break Kolmogorov's new
> coding system. This required them to determine that "P = NP" (see
> accompanying article). Details are to be published next month in the
> journal "Doklady.Krypto," but a few details are emerging.
> The Kolmogorov system is broken by computing the prime numbers
> which form what is called the modulus. This is done by randomly
> guessing the constituent primes and then detonating all of the
> stockpiled nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union for each "wrong
> guess." In the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics,
> invented in 1949 by Lev Landau (and later, independently by Everett
> and Wheeler in the U.S.), all possible outcomes of a quantum
> experiment are realized.
> As Academician Leonid Vladwylski explained, "In all the
> universes in which we guessed the wrong factors, we were destroyed
> completely. But since we are obviously here, talking to you at this
> press conference, in this universe we have an unbroken record of
> successfully factoring even the largest of imaginable numbers. Since
> we are so optimistic about this method, we say the computation runs in
> "Nondeterministic Pollyanna Time." Allow me to demonstrate..."
>
> [Press Conference will be continued if the experiment is a success.]
>
> MOSCOW (AP), ITAR-Tass, 1 April 1994
>
>
--
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tc...@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."
--
..........................................................................
Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tc...@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."
Ronald Bruck
>
>From: tcmay (Timothy C. May)
>Subject: (fwd) Russians Break RSA?
>To: cyphe...@toad.com
>Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 01:15:32 -0800 (PST)
^^^^^^^^^^
Yawn. Timothy, I haven't even had my morning coffee yet, and I spotted the
April Fools Joke. You'll have to do better than this.
--Ron Bruck
David Sternlight
>
>This is obvious a joke.
>
How dare you suggest the distinguished cryptographer, bon vivant, and judge
of fine wines Timothy C. May would post a joke. Would you have preferred
that he wait until April 2 to post, thus preventing us from taking the
proper fallout protections for a full day?
I've visited KryptoGorodok many times in my capacity as secret advisor to
the cryptogram column of the New York Times. We of the New York Times knew
about this for many years as part of our appropriate technology exchange
program, in which we gave the Soviets our crossword puzzle construction
secrets in exchange for their cryptogram secrets.
I'm also deeply offended that you should doubt the capabilities of that
distinguised academic and fine woman, Dorothy Denning. Since she performed
her weekend confirmation tests of the cryptosystem using a prototype of the
new Amdahl massively parallel computer, it was as if she had studied the
system for 37,329 years.
Her conclusions are based on the Yerri-Shch factor. Since these constructs
are present in the Russian language, they create vulnerabilities which can
be exploited to break the Kolmogorov Cipher when used with Russian
plaintext, but most European languages are quite secure, with the exception
of Estonian. The Estonians, on discovering this vulnerability, hired a
number of Yiddish code talkers to protect their most valuable
communications, offering them all the chopped herring they could eat in
order to lure them away from the private sector.
One footnote on history, which I know because I'm 153 years old and you
children probably are too young to remember before you were born. Kolmogorov
was really a sneak. His system was largely based on the work of Smirnov, to
whom he gave no credit. Smirnov's attorneys subsequently took him to court,
and though the statute of limitations had expired, they forced him to make
up for it in naming the famous Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic. This allowed
Smirnov enough of the royalties to emigrate, change his name to Smirnoff,
and the rest is history.
While I'm exposing this crowd, I should tell you that the real cryptological
work in the U.S. isn't done by the NSA, which is a front for secret
alchemical work in turning lead into gold to reduce the deficit. The real
crypto work is done by the successor organization to the American Black
Chamber, the U.S. Bureau of Mines. Until now, they've been very successful
in keeping their classified work in a very dark place
Well, enough telling secrets on the net. I think I hear someone knocking at
my door.
David
April 1, 1994
Timothy C. May
Yes, it was an April Fool's Day spoof. Yes, I wrote it. (Some folks
wrote to me, asking where I got it from.)
I'm writing here to make a couple of points.
First, it was Stephen Wolfram's actual suggestion, a couple of years
ago, after the USSR imploded, that we try to recruit mathematicians
and programmers from what he surmised must exist: a secret city of
Soviet cryptographers. It probably exists. We did it at Los Alamos,
they did it with their rocket scientists and others (Akademogorodok
exists), so why not put their version of NSA a bit off the beaten
track? Note that our own NSA is within a stone's throw of the
Baltimore-Washington Parkway. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that
their experts were ensconced somewhere in the Urals.
I tried to acknowledge Steve with my comments. By the way, so far as I
know, no word has come out on whether he was right in this
speculation. (Maybe some of the Russians he does in fact have working
at Wolfram are these folks? Naw...)
Second, Kolmogorov did basic work on information theory, probability,
and statistics. One has to assume he had ties to the Soviet
cryptography effort (about which little has been written about, so
far). If anyone in Russia could have seen public key methods coming,
he is a candidate. No evidence that he or any other Russian did,
though.
Third, my references to Denning and Sternlight were perhaps not
riotously funny (though I didn't aim for a rioutously funny tone).
Especially in light of David Sternlight's excellent follow-up
here....never let it be said that David lacks a sense of humor. The
Denning reference was to her own comments about spending a weekend or
so trying (and failing, not surprisingly) to crack the Skipjack
algorithm. (Real ciphers often take years to break, as with the
knapsack algorithm, recent crunching of DES, etc.).
Fourth, the "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics does
exist, and leads to approaches such as I described. It's also a
hypothetical way to ensure one's wealth: simply bet everything you own
at 1000-to-1 odds and then commit suicide in all universes in which
you lose. Not very convincing, I agree. Hans Moravec writes about this
in his "Mind Children," 1987.
Finally, I used the headers and format of a real article in the
ClariNet system, then made modifications. Given that the Supreme Court
has recently ruled in favor of "fair use" for satire, I hope my
version of "2 Live Crew meets RSA" does not get my sued.
(I could just kill myself in all realities in which Brad sues me....)
--Tim May
Nicol C So
Did you smell something fishy here? I do.
>> MOSCOW (AP) -- At a press conference held minutes ago...
If this is from AP, it should have been published somewhere. Anybody
knows where and when this report was published? Anyone?
>> ... Professor Denning was quoted at the time saying that she
>> did not think this meant the Russians could actually break the
>> Kolmogorov system, known in the West as RSA, because she had spent
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> more than a full weekend trying to do this and had not
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> succeeded. "Believe me, RSA is still unbreakable," she said in her
^^^^^^^^^
>> evaluation report.
People have been trying to break RSA ever since it was published. A
full weekend's work by one individual is nothing compared with the effort
of thousands of researchers for almost 20 years. Not even a semi-competent
grad student would say something like this, let alone an established
researcher like Denning (unless, of course, this is a different Denning
than I have in mind).
>> Russia's top mathematicians set out to break Kolmogorov's new
>> coding system. This required them to determine that "P = NP" (see
>> accompanying article). Details are to be published next month in the
>> journal "Doklady.Krypto," but a few details are emerging.
Who are these "top mathematicians"? Gee, not only are they way ahead of
their colleagues in academia in the rest of the world. They actually
refuted multiple statements widely conjectured to be true. What an
achievement, wow!
>> [Absurd details about factoring by detonating nuclear stockpile deleted.]
>> [Press Conference will be continued if the experiment is a success.]
This is obvious a joke.
>>
>> MOSCOW (AP), ITAR-Tass, 1 April 1994
Note the date--it's April Fool's Day.
Raymond Blaak
>Fourth, the "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics does
>exist, and leads to approaches such as I described. It's also a
>hypothetical way to ensure one's wealth: simply bet everything you own
>at 1000-to-1 odds and then commit suicide in all universes in which
>you lose. Not very convincing, I agree. Hans Moravec writes about this
>in his "Mind Children," 1987.
One thing I have never understood about using the ``many worlds''
inperpretation this way is why anyone suggests suicide for the failing
cases. In the case of factoring numbers, one could simply try another
candidate instead of blowing up the nuclear weapon stockpile, and in the
case of betting everything and losing, just go on welfare.
Whether or not you kill yourself has no bearing in the universe where you
actually were successful.
Cheers,
Ray Blaak
bl...@csri.toronto.edu
Bruce Schneier
interpretation of quantum mechanics, then this will work. Somewhere
there is a universe where P appears to equal NP. Not because it can
be proven, but because every time someone makes a guess they turn out
to be right.
Bruce
Bruce Schneier
Soviet Union, John Wiley & Sons will recall all copies of Applied
Cryptography, pending an updated edition.
Bruce
Timothy C. May
Fair enough, and let me not go too far in trying to defend this
bizarre notion (cf. Moravec's "Mind Children" for a longer
discussion).
The "flourish" of blowing up the universe, or the world, or one's
self, is usually thrown in to make a point about dividing the branches
into "winners" and "losers." Indeed, nothing that happens in one
universe affects what happens in other, parallel universes.
But, in my fictitious (I hope) example, the Russians had actually
rigged it so that losing guesses would wipe out the world. If they
were telling the truth (cf. the similar analysis of Newcomb's
Paradox), then in fact in this world they have gotten the right answer
each and every times, since we're still here.
Strangely, this is an important point in "proving" that the method
works (psychologically, at least). A scenario in which nothing
happened when wrong guesses were made would be what we have now.
Again, I don't subscribe to this whole view.
Owen Lewis
da...@sternlight.com "David Sternlight" writes:
>.... With regret, much deleted.....
>Well, enough telling secrets on the net. I think I hear someone knocking at
>my door.
>
>David
>April 1, 1994
At 02:45 local time, you brightened a dull day :-)
--
-= Owen Lewis =-
@
Tele/fax +44-(0)794-301731 ELOKA Consultancy & Project Management
o...@eloka.demon.co.uk
pgp 2.x public key on request
Misha Verbitsky
>
>Yes, it was an April Fool's Day spoof. Yes, I wrote it. (Some folks
>wrote to me, asking where I got it from.)
>
>I'm writing here to make a couple of points.
>
>First, it was Stephen Wolfram's actual suggestion, a couple of years
>ago, after the USSR imploded, that we try to recruit mathematicians
>and programmers from what he surmised must exist: a secret city of
>Soviet cryptographers. It probably exists. We did it at Los Alamos,
>they did it with their rocket scientists and others (Akademogorodok
>exists), so why not put their version of NSA a bit off the beaten
>track? Note that our own NSA is within a stone's throw of the
>Baltimore-Washington Parkway. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that
>their experts were ensconced somewhere in the Urals.
This secret city probably exists, but the mathematical
quality of Soviet secret cryptography is extremely low.
First of all, KGB did not try to recruit graduates
of Universities (at least as far as I know). Most
of KGB crypto workers studied in KGB own schools.
It was assumed (not sure if this is true) that
all number theory works in characteristic two
were classified. Jokers say that the usual premise
"let p be the odd prime number" was due to this
secrecy. However, in the KGB school mathematicians
apparently did not study any algebra or number theory
except some char two classified textbooks. Another hearsay
is that some KGB profi mathematicians came to Manin's
(not sure, but I have heard this from his students
so I assume that Manin's) seminar with some char.
2 problem and while talking it over they admitted
that they heard of Galois group but don't know
what is it. It is true that Soviet "KGB algebraists"
knew astonishingly much about char 2 (my friend
studied cryptography by some semi-classified Soviet
textbook, and some powerful char 2 results in this book were
completely new to me), but they were much more specialized
than Western cryptographers.
>Second, Kolmogorov did basic work on information theory, probability,
>and statistics. One has to assume he had ties to the Soviet
>cryptography effort (about which little has been written about, so
>far). If anyone in Russia could have seen public key methods coming,
>he is a candidate.
It is possible. However, there is an excellent
(non-classified) book on elliptic curves and code theory
written by Manin's students Tsfasman and Vladuc, so one may
assume that number-theoretic approach to coding was understood
by Manin's school quite early (in 70-ies). I have heard of public
key methods from Kolmogorov's student Sasha Shen in about 1984,
so by that time they were probably well known in Russia.
Misha.
Jan Bielawski
<
<>> ... Professor Denning was quoted at the time saying that she
<>> did not think this meant the Russians could actually break the
<>> Kolmogorov system, known in the West as RSA, because she had spent
< ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
<>> more than a full weekend trying to do this and had not
< ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
<>> succeeded. "Believe me, RSA is still unbreakable," she said in her
< ^^^^^^^^^
<>> evaluation report.
<
<People have been trying to break RSA ever since it was published. A
<full weekend's work by one individual is nothing compared with the effort
<of thousands of researchers for almost 20 years. Not even a semi-competent
<grad student would say something like this, let alone an established
<researcher like Denning (unless, of course, this is a different Denning
<than I have in mind).
No, this is her, but the joke is on you: the underlined sentence above
seems to be a pun on Denning's recent evaluation of the Clipper chip
where she spent few days with the NSA experts running some tests on it.
--
Jan Bielawski
Computervision, San Diego
j...@cvsd.cv.com
Gregory Stewart-Nicholls
> >> ... Professor Denning was quoted at the time saying that she
> >> did not think this meant the Russians could actually break the
> >> Kolmogorov system, known in the West as RSA, because she had spent
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> more than a full weekend trying to do this and had not
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >> succeeded. "Believe me, RSA is still unbreakable," she said in her
> ^^^^^^^^^
> >> evaluation report.
>
> People have been trying to break RSA ever since it was published. A
> full weekend's work by one individual is nothing compared with the effort
> of thousands of researchers for almost 20 years. Not even a semi-competent
> grad student would say something like this, let alone an established
> researcher like Denning (unless, of course, this is a different Denning
> than I have in mind).
Oh I don't know. Didn't she (and others) pronounce skipjack secure after
some similarly trivial interval ???
--
Vidi | Gregory Stewart-Nicholls
Vici | ni...@olympus.demon.co.uk
Veni | TeknoLogika ltd
David Sternlight
Dimitri Vulis, CUNY GC Math
at $20. (Not as if it weren't worth >>, but I am an impoverished graduate
student and a paperback like that costs under $5 to print.)
Impoverishedly,
Dimitri Vulis
CUNY GC Math
D...@CUNYVMS1.BITNET D...@CUNYVMS1.GC.CUNY.EDU
Disclaimer: my Usenet postings don't necessarily represent anyone's views,
especially my own and/or CUNY's.
Clifton T. Sharp
For a statement of this importance, I'm sure you could have had Randy
Suess hack the date on this message...
--
Optimists say, "The glass is half full."
Cliff Sharp Pessimists say, "It's half empty."
WA9PDM We realists say, "Before I decide,
tell me what's in the glass."
Clifton T. Sharp
Subject: Re: RSA Broken by the Russians?
Date: 6 Apr 94 00:44:07 GMT
Bill Stewart +1-510-484-6204
It's true, though you _do_ have to blow up a lot of universes to get
the right one to show up :-)
--
# Bill Stewart AT&T Global Information Solutions (new name for NCR!)
# 6870 Koll Center Pkwy, Pleasanton CA 94566 1-510-484-6204 fax-6399
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Disclaimer: My cats are walking on my keyboard again.
Bill Stewart +1-510-484-6204
Subject: Re: RSA Broken by the Russians?
Eugene Tyurin
MV> This secret city probably exists, but the mathematical quality of
MV> Soviet secret cryptography is extremely low. First of all, KGB
MV> did not try to recruit graduates of Universities (at least as far
MV> as I know).
Well, may be I'm awfully wrong, but in the Moscow University there was
a special "Department of Structural Linguistics" (or something like
this) which was rumoured to be a KGB crypto-college. I remember (from
the time I was studying for the admission exams) that their math tests
were as hard as the ones for Math, Physics departments. I can guess
from this that the quality of students was the same.
--
-- MIME mail is welcome -- finger for PGP PKB --
Active Ingredient: Eugene Tyurin <ge...@insti.physics.sunysb.edu>
http://insti.physics.sunysb.edu:80/~gene/plan.html
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Handle with care: fragile, toxic and flammable.
Yury
>From: ge...@insti.physics.sunysb.edu (Eugene Tyurin)
>Subject: Re: RSA Broken by the Russians?
>>>> "MV" == Misha Verbitsky <ver...@widder.harvard.edu> writes:
MV> This secret city probably exists, but the mathematical quality of
MV> Soviet secret cryptography is extremely low. First of all, KGB
MV> did not try to recruit graduates of Universities (at least as far
MV> as I know).
>Well, may be I'm awfully wrong, but in the Moscow University there was
>a special "Department of Structural Linguistics" (or something like
>this) which was rumoured to be a KGB crypto-college. I remember (from
>the time I was studying for the admission exams) that their math tests
>were as hard as the ones for Math, Physics departments. I can guess
>from this that the quality of students was the same.
Why bother pointing to Verbitskii's misses? You better point on hits.
Much less effort. Of course, KGB was very active in
recruiting people from Universities (Institutes). MAI was a popular one.
I remember some rumours about FizTech, too.
Yury
Yuri Ammosov
>
>a special "Department of Structural Linguistics" (or something like
>this) which was rumoured to be a KGB crypto-college. I remember (from
>the time I was studying for the admission exams) that their math tests
>were as hard as the ones for Math, Physics departments. I can guess
>from this that the quality of students was the same.
You are unfortunately wrong on both assumptions:
1) OSIPL (Otdelenie Strukturnoi i Prikladnoi Lingvistiki) byl
pribezhishem ne KGBshnyx shifrovalshikov, a delovityx ochkarikov i
devochek-intellectualok (poslednix - podavlyayshee bolshinsto). Iz moego
klassa tuda popali dve devushki (shkola # 26, vypusk 1986 g.) Obe byli
tak umny, chto v ix prisutstvii ya chuvstvoval sebya imbecile. O KGB tam
nikakoi rechi ni shlo - naoborot, parila vysochaishaya akademicheskaya
teoriya. Izuchali tam vse - ot vostochnoi philosofii do biologii i
matana. Nabirali 6 chelovek v god - no otbor byl tot eshe.
2) Da, math tests were really challenging, no pomimo etogo sdavali eshe
teoriy yazyka (russkogo, slava bogu) i sochinenie, i eto bylo na
poryadok slozhnee. I kachestvo studenta bylo takoe, chto nam i ne
snilos. Edinstvennoe, chto s chuvstvom realnosti u OSIPLovzev bylo
ploxovato - no zdes ya biased. Skoree vsego, oni chuvstvovali realnost
po-drugomu ili chuvstvovali kakyy-to drugyy realnost', ne tu, chto
vosprinimaem my.
Resume: eto byl odin is poslednix zapovednikov chistoi nauki i oasis
gumanitarnogo znaniya. Practicheskaya primenimost u OSIPL'a byla
nulevaya, no uchili tam... o-o...
--
Stirlitz, alias Mad Cat
(known to some users as Yuri Ammosov)
'Consensus is the death of leadership.'
-- Maggie Thatcher, February 1994
El Technicolour
> In article <Cno3y...@chinet.chinet.com> schn...@chinet.chinet.com (Bruce Schneier) writes:
> The really bizarre thing is, that if you assume a "many worlds"
> interpretation of quantum mechanics, then this will work. Somewhere
> there is a universe where P appears to equal NP. Not because it can
> be proven, but because every time someone makes a guess they turn out
> to be right.
>
> It's true, though you _do_ have to blow up a lot of universes to get
> the right one to show up :-)
Hmmm. How about if we wired the world's nuclear arsenals to a program
which detected whether Ludwig was still posting to sci.math?
--
Name: chiz
Quote: "I got this .signature quote for my SO, and let me tell you,
it was a bloody good swap!"
Emmanuel Baechler
> MV> This secret city probably exists, but the mathematical quality of
> MV> Soviet secret cryptography is extremely low. First of all, KGB
> MV> did not try to recruit graduates of Universities (at least as far
> MV> as I know).
Did you ever read Sheymov's book (*)? I don't know how far, precisely, they
where on cryptography, but I am absolutely conviced that the KGB put a *LOT*
of effort in this domain, and remember than it was (and remains) the most
efficient institution of the whole USSR (CIS).
Shemov mentions that they used one time pads during the sixties. He
also mentions that, at that time, their cipher mechanism were
electromechanincal at that time. They were however enclosed in
special secure shells which look pretty impressive.
It is possible that the current US cipher systems are more
sophisticated than the current soviet ones, but it is only a
possibility. Even if it were true, I am sure that their mathematical
methods are on a par with the best ones used in occident, and that their
devices work very well.
(*) Victor Sheymov
The tower of secrets
Naval Institute Press 1993
Shemov claims that he has been a KGB officer in the eighth directorate (the
one in charge of cipher communications and of their security). His job was
to be a troubleshooter everywhere. So, he had to know a lot of things about
the KGB. He especially knew the whole structure of the organization. He
succeeded in leaving sovietunion (and the KGB) at the beginning of the 80s.
--
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CH-1011 Lausanne Switzerland
Political correctness = the replacement of historical biasses in the language
by new ones that are more suitable for the speaker's
purposes
Gun control laws don't die, people do.
Ban the bomb. Save the world for conventional warfare.
Bruce Schneier
So it seems. You wouldn't believe the number of people that took this
seriously. So much for attempts of humor on sci.crypt.
Bruce
Misha Verbitsky
>
>MV> This secret city probably exists, but the mathematical quality of
>MV> Soviet secret cryptography is extremely low. First of all, KGB
>MV> did not try to recruit graduates of Universities (at least as far
>MV> as I know).
>Well, may be I'm awfully wrong, but in the Moscow University there was
>a special "Department of Structural Linguistics" (or something like
>this) which was rumoured to be a KGB crypto-college. I remember (from
>the time I was studying for the admission exams) that their math tests
>were as hard as the ones for Math, Physics departments. I can guess
>from this that the quality of students was the same.
Well, dept. of Structural Linguistic was a section
of philology department. It was organized by the famous
logicist V. A. Uspensky who was friendly with Tartu
(and Moscow) school of structural linguistic. The intent
was, Lotman and Co. used (or believed they use) Kolmogorov's
notions of entropy and complexity in philology,
so philologists who wanted to study structuralism
needed to learn some mathematics. For a while,
MSU Str. Ling. dept. was the best philology school
in the country. Now, after a serie of pogroms
it still remains one of the best school (mostly
because after those pogroms all MSU philology department
went awry). Since I was friendly with some of
Uspensky's students I know the situation firsthand.
The students of Str. Ling. dept. were 80% girls, they
did't know (or like) math, and most of the math lecturers
(after Uspensky) were Jews and/or dissidents.
I doubt strongly KGB would use many people connected
with Str. Ling. dept., though I know some whom they
offered cooperation. Anyway, Str. Ling. dept. have had
no classified courses, unlike most of other MSU depts.
The funny sci.math related detail: Uspensky read
calculus on Str. Ling. dept. for years. After a while
he became bored and instead of usual calculus program
offered the non-standard analysis course. Poor
girls, who naturally hated mathematics, were
completely distressed, because now they could
not even make they boyfriends to do their problem
sets.
Misha.
P. S. I apologise for Vulis reposting every second article
that I post to sci.math. I hope you stay amused. There is no
way to make Vulis stop this practice, as far as I understand.
I think he developed a crash on my net.personality.
Ludwig Fermat
>P. S. I apologise for Vulis reposting every second article \ /
>that I post to sci.math. I hope you stay amused. There is no oVo
>way to make Vulis stop this practice, as far as I understand. \___XXX___/
>I think he developed a crash on my net.personality. __XXXXX__
^^^^^ [crush?] =========> /__XXXXX__\
/\ \|/ (\o/) Cockroach = Soviet emigre's best friend / XXX \
| /_ _\ (/|\) ---------------------------------------------V--------
|dx o( o o )o Hi! I'm Misha Zeleny. I used to post bullshit from
| \ V /............. Harvard, but now I post bullshit from UCLA. Aren't
\/ _|"| _ _ you all sorry the Internet has spread so far and
/ / \ ( `\/'*) wide - just like Misha Verbitsky's ass cheeks!
\==/ / / .| \ */' \|||/ -------------------------------------------
{oo} \ \ | `\/' /, ,\ Hi! I'm Misha Verbitsky. I like to suck
\/ .\ \__| ________: ^v^ : Misha Zeleny's cock while being spanked |\**/|
| \ C==/ \\\\\\ \_O_/... with a hyperhomologic bundle. I cook \ == /
@}-,`- \ \__/ |_ _____\ \ batches of hallucinogenic chemicals |PU|
| | \ \\\ \ \ ,===* for the whole math department. My \ /
/\____| /\_____\ \" \ \ O motto is "Better living through \/
/ ______/ ________/ |~| \ \___ chemistry, even if you think .-. .-.
|_/ / |_/ /\!/\ / \ \____) you're a mathematician!!!" .****. .****.
<O<{ |* 0 *| /PCP\ ----------------------- .*****.*****.
\ \/|\/ `---' ........ We're more fun than 2 .*********.
====================================== barrels of monkeys, .*******.
No problem whatsoever --- your ravings like Plutonium or __ .*****.
are highly amusing indeed. Vulis must Abian. Are they __/o \ .***.
have great patience to scan your daily also in love? \____ \_ .*.
soc.culture.soviet diatribes for those ----------- / \ .
funniest 10%. Has anyone suggested to o-----o ------2-- __ //\ \
you switching majors from mathematics |\ |\ -E=MC-- __/o \-//--\ \_/
to chemistry and / or stand-up comedy? | o---+-o ----- \____ ___ \ | .
================/===================== o-+---o | --- || \ |\ | PU
/-- / \| \| - _|| _||_|| 231
lim \/ 3 = 2 / n n n o-----o
3->4 / X + Y = Z for all X, Y, Z and n! Choose your axioms wisely!
.-. / We're queer, we're here, get used to it! __ ____________
/ \ .-. / /\ /\ _________\
/ \ / \ .-. .-. _ _ / / \ \ \ \___ __ /
--/-------\-----/-----\-----/---\---/---\---/-\-/-\/\/-- / / /\ \ \ \ \ / / /
/ \ / \ / '-' '-' ^ / / /\ \ \ \ \ \/ / /
/ '-' '-' / /_/__\ \ \ \ \/ / /
%%%%% sin t / t = Misha Verbitsky's brain activity! /________\ \ \ \ / /
*-.-*+!%$%!+*-.-*+!%$%!+*-.-*+!%$%!+*-.-*+!%$%!+*-.- \___________\/ \/_/
F2F...@vm.biu.ac.il
(also a reffence to the first paper would be nice)
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_/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ f2f...@vm.biu.ac.il
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ 'those that the
_/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ uncharted waters dare
_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Only for the frothing