Perfect Encryption

Here is an article about a perfect encryption

http://www.discover.com/may_02/gther...=feattech.html

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Theoretically, perfect encryption has been around for a long time. In 1918 American mathematician Gilbert Vernam invented the one-time cipher, which substitutes a random number or letter for each character in a message. As long as you don't reuse that random sequence for subsequent messages, nobody can break the code. But to employ the code, you must send the sequence—the key that unscrambles the encrypted message—to the intended receiver.

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Of course a true perfect encryption system is hard to make because some were along the line the data has to appear in an unencrypted state so people can comprehend it.

I think "perfect" encryption is a little tough to achieve simply because there always needs to be a way to decipher it through a relatively simple and highly reproduceable means.

it shall never be perfect

No it can't be perfect as same as a lock if u copy the key it can be opened

encryption is only good for a length of time after which faster CPUs crack and decipher the encrypted data. its the best we can do.

___________________
ulcers are not caused by what we eat but what eats us...

A one time pad is as close to perfect encryption as you can get, but it still isn't perfect. Because of the size, there is no way that both people could memorize the entire onetime pad. Therefore, it must be written down. The moment you do that, you have caused a vulnerabilty.....

As souleman said, a one time pad is perfect as long as the key used is random, and nobody can obtain a copy of the key. It doesn't have to be written down (might be stored on a floppy/CD for example - with the original copy permanently erased), but like all encryption methods, it is vulnerable if the floppy/CD can be acquired by someone else.
Depends on how you generate your random numbers, but if it is done well then this is very difficult to crack.
Same principle applies for something like PGP really - the best place to store your keys etc. is on removable media (floppy/CD), which you make sure are secure.

How secure is secure?

To use a key, two people need it ... the encrypter and the decrypter. This means two copies which can be found. After all, someone might break in at the encrypter's and copy the key before it used and erased. The same applies at the decrypters.

No security system by itself is perfect. You can improve the security level by combining various methods, but there will always be the risk of the person. How do you secure the brain of an individual ... he can be bought after all (or blackmailed, or tortured, ...).

Whatever you do, a message originates and arrives. Those remain weak links in the chain.

Cheers,

BrainStop

i hope that i don't have any sensitive data left in about 20 years, because the argument of "the perfect encryption" is that far away from becoming a moot point.

true terminal quantum computers are coming. 10e computing sets exist in the experimental phase at the University of California, Irvine Chemistry and Quantum Computing labs.

As some of you may know, the advent of quantum computing exponentialy decreases the theoretical time needed to solve an algorythm. Hell, gifted mathematicians have nearly solved the "god algorythm" of the cube, so i expect that once these hit the market in personal computing, we're going to have alot of fun.

But, what if the Government gets it first?
Ha! not likely, they are grossly underfunded for this kind of venture. After the creation of the Nuclear bomb and subsequent Neutron bomb, the gov let go all the Physisits and Quantum theorist. Contrary to ignorant public opinion, Quantum computing CANNOT be achieved by electric/computer engineers. It is the acedemic sector that will create the practical application first.

So what will happen to encryption?
Well, now encryptions are going to be 128 x 10^9 bit. That puts non-quantum computers SOL in cracking. Because even if your comp hit the key in the first 1% of the possible combinations, it would be over a million years.

Just Food for Thought

Encryption is a process that is made to be reversed, and it will (legally or not) Even if it takes that person a year trying to break the encryption, it will be done... When people make stronger and stronger keys, other people make faster and more powerful computers to break that encryption.... So in other words, there is no such thing as a perfect encryption

Though there will never be perfect encryption (that we know of), there are some ways to supplement existing systems to make it much more effective. One of these is to create your own language (and possibly even a separate script for it). By doing this, not only do they have to break the encryption, something with a key that has to be transferable in some physical way, but also interpret an entire language without any clues as to what even the simplest word is. The language doesn't even need a physical medium, as the two reading the message can hold the language in their head.

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Originally posted here by ac1dsp3ctrum
Encryption is a process that is made to be reversed, and it will (legally or not) Even if it takes that person a year trying to break the encryption, it will be done... When people make stronger and stronger keys, other people make faster and more powerful computers to break that encryption.... So in other words, there is no such thing as a perfect encryption

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That's not quite true - most encryption algorithms are devised so that it is as difficult as possible to reverse it (otherwise there wouldn't be much point!) - to reverse the process usually involves some mathematical weakness that was not known about, or more commonly a weakness with the way the algorithm is implemented in practice. Brute force alone won't work most of the time.
As was pointed out by Bithway714, the advent of quantum computing will put a whole new spin on this (sorry - bad joke). It has two possible applications - the first is to generate real random numbers, and the second is to use it as a secure communications method, as intercepting the message causes the spin on the particle to change, and both ends of the link know this has happened. The first prototypes to do this are very close, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was commercially viable in the next 5-10 years.
But, of course, nothing is perfect ....

I dont know if they do this but if you wanted... you could create space in the encrypted file and put 'noise' in it so that its even more a jumble if you dont get the key right... I think using a self made encryption program would do the job cause you would not only have to have the key but the program that would remove the 'noise' from the file... the key would also generate that "crazy data" :-) ... only downfall is an increased file size... nothing is perfect though

Well, even a one-time cipher isn't necessarily secure. The content of the message matters too. For instance, simple character-replacement could be easily foiled through some intelligent brute-forcing. Just look for the most common character. It is probably an "e". (And if there are a lot of three letter words ending with the e-character, they are probably "the"...)

In reply to Terr's comment about a one-time cipher, this really does come down to how the key was generated. If a one-time pad is used with truly random numbers, then the first time the letter 'e' will be changed to 'z', and the next to 'b' say totally at random. This destroys any pattern in the original text (so it doesn't matter what language is used!).
However, if the key used is not random, then some patterns will persist in the encrypted text.
Which is why using a quntum based computer to generate real random numbers could be very significant.

That’s why you write it in Romanian or Japanese before you encrypt it. Who ever is trying to brute force it might assume its English and start looking for common patterns in the English language.

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Originally posted here by Kezil
Though there will never be perfect encryption (that we know of), there are some ways to supplement existing systems to make it much more effective. One of these is to create your own language (and possibly even a separate script for it). By doing this, not only do they have to break the encryption, something with a key that has to be transferable in some physical way, but also interpret an entire language without any clues as to what even the simplest word is. The language doesn't even need a physical medium, as the two reading the message can hold the language in their head.

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Interesting. In wwI the Allies used some soldier commo types from eastern US indian tribes quite successfully as military "code talkers". Between wwI and wwII the axis quitely enrolled a few "students" into schools with our natives and supposedly were able to gain a reasonable knowledge of those languages. Come wwII, the idea of native languages came up again, but this time the army used Navajo soldiers as "code talkers". But not only did the Navajos speak a language that no outsiders understood, it had a totally "foreign" :) sound with no ralation to any other language. The Navajo soldiers further modified their language with code words that meant military terms.... like bomber, observation plane, submarine, infantry company, and a bunch more i can't remember right now.
So Kezil's idea has merit. Maybe the next successful code language will be .... Klingon? :D

Oh, i forgot; if you're going to write something to a friend (probably not a proper business message) don't use proper english sentence structure (or whatever language you speak ;) ) but use slang, poor sentence structure, mizspel wurdz, leev ov th ind littirz uf shrt wurdz an us phniticz,... Get inventive, use code words in your original before the substitution that will be used by the encryption program... Anyway, this is not meant to be even close to scientific in a short space, just a few ideas that will slow down the decipher process. A "secret message" usually only has a specific valuable life cycle, if you can delay the decipher process beyond that point, the effort spent in breaking it becomes worthless, and a drain on resources. Anyway, that's the way some of my friends see it, just thought i'd pass it on... :D

Wow, always trust a veteran for good ideas! :D

I suggest using animal speech, like whales, dolphins or even cockroaches lmao

Are you guys encrypting emails to your mom? :D

About those code talkers (as they were called) there is a new and presumably bad Nick Cage movie coming out this summer called "Wind Talkers" about it....just food for thought...

As for so callled "perfect encryption", humans have an incredible capacity for self delusion (this is not a personal attack on anyone, just a broad generalization) that often extends to the supposed power of encryption. We have thought we had perfect encrpytion before (engima comes to mind) but it has always only been as strong as its weakest link, which in this case is the human end user. If they refuse to follow the often simple safety protocols of password creation, how on earth will they use quantum cryptography correctly???

Just another thought from everyones favorite optimist....

...in the military we use a specific kind of encryption that we don't know what it is...however

our equipment does so if you ever wanted to break it that means you would have to get a piece of our equipment and connect it to the rest of the network and then have something else to use it with in other words...

encrypted--->equipment---->decrypted--->equipment--->equipment.

for all that you mind as well just join and forget about decrypting it

There is a good/informative article in the latest IEEE magazine on quantum cryptography. It explains the idea behind it and what not.

It says, "this new method has the potential to be absolutely unbreakable--not just practically unbreakable, as the makers of the World War II Enigma machines thought and the users of today's publick key encryption hope, but theoretically unbreakable. Mathematicians believe they can prove it."

It also says a lot of other stuff.



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I hope this post wasn't completely worthless, for it was my first.

People believed that the Venegere cipher of the 17th century was also unbreakable, and that they could also prove it....

Then again Quantum physics is already quite strange so who knows?

But, being the skeptic that I am, I shall believe it when I see it...

It was said earlier that the onetime pad is completely secure but that a large key must be created and stored. If the key is found then the security is compromised. Well, what if the actual key were generated as the text is encrypted? This could easily be done with a pseudo-random number generator. I am currently developing an algorithm called RKOPV that uses this.
The only way to cryptanalyze it would be to try every possible seed for the random number generatr, since the seed acts as the key. The larger the seed, the more difficult this is. If you have eight distinct seeds of 32 maximum bits each, then there are (2^32)^8 possible keys and even if every computer in the world were put to work checking each seed it would still take longer than the lifetime of the universe.
If anyone wants more info, please PM me. I am planning to release the exact algorithm to the public for free once my copyright and patent are secured.

there's also another way that would be possible...what about changing the text to "3l33t" talk first? or just use "3l33t" that's probably illegible enough on it's own :D