Dabbling in the Cryptographic World (1999)

Dabbling in the Cryptographic World (1999)(bell-labs.com)

52 points by timdierks 8 years ago | 8 comments

philprx 8 years ago |

AFAIK, "Thus the current citation for it is J. Reeds, D. Ritchie, R. Morris, "The Hagelin Cipher Machine (M-209): Cryptanalysis from Ciphertext Alone", unpublished technical memorandum, Bell Laboratories, 1978. Submitted to Cryptologia."

has been published in 2015:

http://cryptome.org/2015/12/ReedsTheHagelinCipherBellLabs197...

wasx 8 years ago |

> I suspect we all had the feeling that we'd shaken a velvet-gloved hand on friendly terms and sensed that there was steel underneath.

Could someone explain what Dennis means when he says this? I didn't really understand the phrase

schoen 8 years ago | |

This means that he perceived a threat disguised as politeness.

pjc50 8 years ago | |

It's an idiom: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/an-iron-...

oldcynic 8 years ago | |

The polite, friendly, retired gentleman could neither confirm or deny that life would get rather difficult if publication proceeded. (ie he wanted to make himself clear without stating directly)

loup-vaillant 8 years ago | | |

I seldom get that kind of hint. I bet I would have published the damn paper, not because I'd felt it would be my duty as a scientist or citizen, but out of sheer obliviousness to possible consequences.

acqq 8 years ago |

At the end of the paper there's a specific hint what was behind NSA's non-wilingness to be explicit, at that time, as Crypto AG from Switzerland is mentioned.

Wikipedia has some details about Crypto AG which are a good afterword to the DMR's article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_AG#Compromised_machines

dang 8 years ago |

Url changed from https://web.archive.org/web/19990220131246/http://cm.bell-la..., which points to this.