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Interesting article, but I was left with a somewhat troubling question about British Intelligence. They developed this elegant crypto algorithm, but felt it may
by saturnine 17y ago
Interesting article, but I was left with a somewhat troubling question about British Intelligence. They developed this elegant crypto algorithm, but felt it may have a weakness which they were unable to find. Being spooks, wouldn't their next thought be, "What if our enemy develops this too and starts using it? We really need to find that weakness!"
Then again, maybe it was ...
- eagleal 17y agoEven Williamson believed that the whole venture was too risky. When he finally wrote up a revised version of his key scheme, he cited these reservations as the reason for the two-year delay. "I find myself in an embarrassing position," he wrote. "I have come to doubt the whole theory of nonsecret encryption. The trouble is that I have no proof that the method ... is genuinely secure." He conceded he could not find anything wrong with the system, though, "and would be grateful if anyone else can." No one did. But by then the GCHQ had tacitly concluded it wasn't worth the effort to implement a public key crypto system. They tried, hard, to find weaknesses, but they couldn't, this was the problem.