IETF Logo Mail Archive

Re: confusing terminology

hal@finney.org ("Hal Finney") Tue, 08 February 2005 18:25 UTC

Received: from above.proper.com (above.proper.com [208.184.76.39]) by ietf.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1a) with ESMTP id NAA02131 for <openpgp-archive@lists.ietf.org>; Tue, 8 Feb 2005 13:25:35 -0500 (EST)
Received: from above.proper.com (localhost.vpnc.org [127.0.0.1]) by above.proper.com (8.12.11/8.12.9) with ESMTP id j18I8CE5025905; Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:08:12 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-ietf-openpgp@mail.imc.org)
Received: (from majordom@localhost) by above.proper.com (8.12.11/8.12.9/Submit) id j18I8COi025904; Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:08:12 -0800 (PST)
X-Authentication-Warning: above.proper.com: majordom set sender to owner-ietf-openpgp@mail.imc.org using -f
Received: from finney.org (226-132.adsl2.netlojix.net [207.71.226.132]) by above.proper.com (8.12.11/8.12.9) with ESMTP id j18I8Bv8025896 for <ietf-openpgp@imc.org>; Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:08:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from hal@finney.org)
Received: by finney.org (Postfix, from userid 500) id 51CBE57E2A; Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:23:41 -0800 (PST)
To: ietf-openpgp@imc.org
Subject: Re: confusing terminology
Message-Id: <20050208182341.51CBE57E2A@finney.org>
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 10:23:41 -0800
From: hal@finney.org
Sender: owner-ietf-openpgp@mail.imc.org
Precedence: bulk
List-Archive: <http://www.imc.org/ietf-openpgp/mail-archive/>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:ietf-openpgp-request@imc.org?body=unsubscribe>
List-ID: <ietf-openpgp.imc.org>

Rick van Rein writes:
> For this reason, I would never, ever encrypt without compressing first.
> This is the cryptographic advise I would like to see in the indicated place.

I'm afraid I don't agree with this as cryptographic advice.  If your
cipher is so weak that you are afraid to encrypt English text, you need
a new cipher!  Not a new compression algorithm.

It's fine if you want to say that compression increases the entropy
density which could in theory make the cryptanalyst's problem slightly
harder, but I would definitely not go so far as to advise or imply that
failing to compress is cryptographically insecure.

Hal Finney

v2.23.0 | Report a Bug | By Email