Microsoft refuses to open-source crypto stacks
Non scrivetemi
micro-development-framework-594
Isn't one of the golden rules of cryptography that the secret is in the
key, not the algorithm? This makes me suspicious. What's in the code
that they don't want us to see? Just to be on the safe side I'd only
use open-source crypto stacks. Who knows what's lurking inside M$'s
crypto.
NSAKey anyone?
Chris McDonald
>.... Just to be on the safe side I'd only
>use open-source crypto stacks. Who knows what's lurking inside M$'s
>crypto.
You sure all of your internet traffic goes through non-Microsoft servers?
--
Chris.
Gordon Burditt
>key, not the algorithm?
Not for DRM.
>This makes me suspicious. What's in the code
>that they don't want us to see? Just to be on the safe side I'd only
>use open-source crypto stacks. Who knows what's lurking inside M$'s
>crypto.
Intentional holes for the RIAA and MPAA.
>NSAKey anyone?
Nope, they have to go to the RIAA and MPAA.
Jonathan Wilson
>> Isn't one of the golden rules of cryptography that the secret is in the
>> key, not the algorithm?
>
> Not for DRM.
there are no private or secret algorithms there, just TEA and RSA from what
I can see on MSDN.
The most likely reasons for not releasing the crypto are:
1.Export control issues. Sun had such issues with the Solaris crypto for
example which meant they couldn't release the crypto bits right away and
had to do a bunch of stuff before they could publish that code. MS may not
want to go through the effort.
2.The same crypto code is likely being used elsewhere by MS in products
that they are not making open source. They likely dont want people to be
able to pour through it for vulnerabilities or holes which can then be
exploited in other places (where patching it may not be easy).
Mok-Kong Shen
> 1.Export control issues. .......
Does anyone happen to have information sources about current US
export control of software? Decades ago I knew that even software that
did logical proof of mathematical theorems was under export control.
I surmise that the situation may have changed quite a bit.
M. K. Shen
Mok-Kong Shen
Through Googling, I found: http://www.export.gov/regulation/index.asp
It is interesting to note that such regulations have very far reaching
influence spheres. I happened to know that (at least till the
beginning of nineties of the last century) researchers from certain
countries doing research in Europe were not allowed to use computing
facilities of supercomputing centres that operated on machines
either from America or from Japan. (They were thus defacto researchers
of the 2nd class.) That large computers couldn't be sold/shipped to
these countries was selfevident. By pure coincidence I just learned
with surprise from http://www.top500.org/list/2009/11/100 that a
supercomputer in a communist country takes the 5th place on the current
Top500 list of supercomputers. How the time has changed!
M. K. Shen
Unruh
With the advent of clusters, the whole definition of "supercomputer"
changed. If I buy 10000 ordinary PCs ( all of which were expeortable
even under the old rules) I have a supercomputer. In fact all of the top
computers are clusters, not a sinble machine. The times when single cpu
Crays for example were the fastest things around are long gone.
>M. K. Shen
Tim Smith
<7af6bc2230a928c4...@pboxmix.winstonsmith.info>,
"Non scrivetemi" <nonscr...@pboxmix.winstonsmith.info> wrote:
>
> NSAKey anyone?
Tin-foil hat, anyone?
--
--Tim Smith