ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Daniel Clem <clem11388@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mkay, sorry for the seriousness, just the topic of NSA has gotten me extremely riled up lately. 

Dmitrijs Ledkovs <xnox@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>On 18 July 2013 01:18, Daniel Clem <clem11388@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> NSA? Really? Before or after the recent hoopla with Verizon and
>others?
>> Echoing another's point. Yes security has become a big hot word
>lately, and
>> for good reason.
>>
>> Just a non-dev comment, I use SMS a lot. It depends who I'm talking
>to,
>> when, and where.
>>
>
>I think Robert simply made a geeky joke here:
>
>>>> for SMS you could do unix ROT 13 a few times
>>>
>>>
>>> The NSA recommends doing it precisely 28 times for unbreakable
>security.
>
>Since ROT13 is a simple Caesar cipher, no amount of rounds improve
>it's security and one can easily and fairly quickly break it, even
>using pen and paper.
>Knowing in advance amount of rounds used, makes decrypting task less
>of a secret =) hence above statement is a joke, since the reverse of
>"unbreakable security" is achieved.
>On a modern computer you can break it near instantly. I believe
>encoding & cracking such algorithms are done as exercisers when doing
>a beginners programming course.
>
>Regards,
>
>Dmitrijs.