On Tue, 17 Nov 1998, Bob Colbert wrote:
> Well, last night I looked at the code a bit and didn't really get
> anywhere. I'm fairly suspicious of the decryption algorithm because the
> programer went through great pains to make the code difficult to trace.
> I would think that if the decryption were TRUELY a 960 bit IRREVERSABLE
> algorithm, there would be no need to make the code difficult to trace.
Alas, I think it really is irreversible (or at least "computationally
infeasible"), without knowing the two prime factors of a very large
composite number. If you were somehow very skilled at determining these,
I'm sure that a number of men in black suits from the NSA would love to
speak to you. :-)
There was a rather thorough discussion thread on the algorithm in
rec.games.video.classic a couple years back, which seems very close to
public key algorithms like RSA in use today. If you would like to get
details about the algorithm, Bruce Tomlin seems to be the man to contact.
He seems to be quite active on rec.games.video.classic so it shouldn't be
hard to find him.
Some of the more pertinent USENET posts in the thread can be found at:
http://x2.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=158697320
http://x2.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=159316543
http://x2.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=160180625
http://x2.dejanews.com/getdoc.xp?AN=161228645
Paul Hart
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