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What Would You Do With a New Form of Encryption?

Posted by Cliff on from the share-or-sell dept.

Kip Knight asks: "I've been sitting on an invention for six months now. I'm debating whether to 'give it to the world' or patent it. I would obviously like to feed my family on the fruits of my endeavour but don't see much hope in the open source route. My invention improves upon the 80 year old One-Time Pad encryption turning it into a 'Many-Time Pad'. Since I haven't got my export license to speak about the details yet, I won't describe further. The advantages are proof (i.e. unbreakable) against brute force attacks and known-plaintext attacks (unlike the OTP). The disadvantage is carrying around a very large digital key (which could easily fit on one of those USB memory key fobs). My question is this: Could I sell enough $10 shareware GPG extensions to compensate for not locking in 20 years of patent protection (and the $20,000 to patent it)?" While the claims made by the submittor have yet to withstand the crucial test of time (and prying eyes), if you had developed a new form of encryption, what would you do?

53 of 789 comments (clear)

  1. Easy. by superdan2k · · Score: 5, Insightful
    1. Patent it. Period.
    2. Allow it to be used freely by open source programs. License it to commercial companies that stand to make money.
    3. ...
    4. Profit.
    --
    blog |
    1. Re:Easy. by Lokni · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I definitely agree with the above poster on 1, 2 ,4. As far as coming up with the $20,000, find a lawyer that will draw up a rock solid non disclosure agreement and then shop it around to rich businessmen and patent lawyers after you get a signed NDA.

    2. Re:Easy. by twilightzero · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The above post definitely has this one right. Patent it, that way somebody else can't steal the idea and claim they invented it and make YOUR profit from it. That being done, you can easily distribute it freely to the masses for common use, or sell shareware, or whatever. If it's really as good as you claim, you shouldn't have problems selling $10 or whatever shareware licenses. Also, if it's that good, corporations would be climbing all over you for access to it. You could charge a very reasonable fee for its use, even allow yourself to be hired as a security consultant/whatever, and make your profit from it.

      I realize it's an up-front cost for patenting, but look at the alternative: someone stealing/adapting your invention and making the money that YOU could've had. Don't let that happen to you. And if it's really that good, there are services out there that will help you patent inventions, although I will admit to not being entirely familiar with them having never patented something myself.

      --

      "Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
    3. Re:Easy. by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Never underestimate an infinite number of lawyers on an infinite number of typewriters submitting claims to the US Patent Office.

      What, they ran out of monkeys and had to go lower on the evolutionary ladder?

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    4. Re:Easy. by blibbleblobble · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Hang on a sec... this guy says he has a revolutionary new encryption algorithm that's as secure as a one-time pad? Now, even for people who don't have the first clue about cryptography*, that sounds like the inventor needs a breath of fresh air and a healthy dose of reality, never mind a patent lawyer.

      Hint: Encryption systems only become revolutionary after they've been in the public domain for 5-10 years. Even then, they won't get used if there's a patent attached.

      One-time pad? Bull. Crypto inventions come at a rate of one every 5 years, and the next one due is quantum cryptography. Think the idea is so smart it's better than quantum? Even claiming it's comparable to elliptic-curve crypto is one hell of a claim, and not something to be believed until it's published in a journal. Several times. And reviewed by people we've heard of. Even then, we won't believe it's unbreakable until the inventor has been imprisoned by the FBI for publishing it.

      Nevermind the patent issue: there's a common-sense issue to be solved first. Thousands of crackpots a year come up with unbreakable [by them] encryption; having a patent doesn't make it any less snake-oil.

      *Clues to be found in:
      Book: Applied cryptography
      Book: Secrets and Lies
      Article: Phil Zimmerman's writings on the PGP page
      Helpfile: PGP helpfile

    5. Re:Easy. by JonTurner · · Score: 5, Insightful
      And then what? "Rock solid" legal agreements don't mean shit unless you have the money to take then to court if they violate the terms or even outright steal the idea. That they did it isn't enough. You have to PROVE it in court, and that takes $$$. Are you prepared for the appeals, motions for discovery, and dozens of other motions filed that are designed to tie you up and run up your legal bills? And even if you do win a decision you have to collect which is another matter entirely.
      A bunch of words on paper isn't going to do much good for someone who may have trouble scraping together the $20,000 for the patent work, the $100,000+++ needed to sue a large corporation with a fleet of slick attorneys is going to be difficult to find.

      Don't just do something, stand there!

    6. Re:Easy. by jovlinger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think schneier was the one to point out that we are all able to invent ciphers that we can't break ourselves. The good ciphers are the ones that can't be broken by others.

    7. Re:Easy. by Bagheera · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Looks like you've hit this one on the head. Crypto is a very conservative world and people don't adopt new algorythms untill they've been analyzed to death. Being unwilling to publish it makes me suspecious right from the start. Once it's published he'll at least have copyright protection and can worry about the patent later.

      We won't go into professional cryptologists opinions of amatures with "new and revolutionary ideas." (But some of the threads in the USENET crypto groups can be very enlightening on that count)

      To answer his specific question, I would say NO. Unless he plans to use some form of free license, there are far too many good, unencumbered, crypto systems out there already for it to be worth it to add yet another patented one. At least for implementations at the application level. If there's going to be money in it, it'll be made from a good implementation of the system.

      --
      Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
    8. Re:Easy. by kasperd · · Score: 5, Informative

      One Time Pad is _provably_ unbreakable.

      That is true.

      With OTP the size of the key and message are identical, and has been proven unconditionally secure. It has also been proven that no encryption with more bits of message than key can ever be unconditionally secure. This means that any cryptosystem with a many time pad or a pseudo random OTP is less secure than a real OTP.

      In other words what this guy claims to have invented was proven impossible a long time ago. I find it hard to believe people when they claim to have done the impossible.

      --

      Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
    9. Re:Easy. by j7953 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Being unwilling to publish it makes me suspecious right from the start.

      Huh? A patent is a method of publishing your invention, in fact, that is (or used to be) one of the points of the patent system: to make it profitable for people to share their inventions instead of keeping them secret. The idea of patents is, as your constitution puts it, "to promote the progress of science."

      Of course, this doesn't work if patents are granted on solutions that are obvious once you know the problem, but that is not the case here. (Assuming the cryptographic algorithm actually works, it is likely that it was not obvious.)

      Remember that RSA is a very successful cryptographic technology, despite being protected by a (now expired) patent.

      --
      Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
    10. Re:Easy. by ChadN · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Furthermore, I am confused by this sentence in Kip's posting:

      The advantages are proof (i.e. unbreakable) against brute force attacks and known-plaintext attacks (unlike the OTP).

      Which implies that the OTP is insecure with known-plaintext, or by brute-forcing, which is untrue for any correctly used OTP. So, either Kip Knight didn't express very well what he meant, or he is not as well versed in cryptography as he should be.

      In any case, the proof is in the pudding. I remain skeptical of the claims.

      --
      "It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
    11. Re:Easy. by DavidTC · · Score: 5, Informative
      And, of course, everyone says it's a myth, but no one explains why, and thus it will balloon into a large and idiotic argument.

      The reason it's a myth is that it's perfectly possible to mail yourself an open envelope. Do that a few times when you're 18, wait ten years, and seal them up with a decade of inventions, make a billion dollars.

      But there's nothing wrong with the theory, and there are plenty of ways to do something similiar. For example, banks keep track of when people access safe deposit boxes, so you could just rent one of those and stick it in there.

      Actually, banks probably provide a service of this exact type.

      Of course, the only reason this would matter is if someone steals your invention. If they invent it independently, you gain nothing at all. they've patented your invention, and it doesn't even count as prior art. (It has to be published to be that.)

      But the whole thing's stupid. By defination you can't reuse one time pads, so I'm not sure how this even got on slashdot.

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  2. If you want to make money, patent it by hpa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... patent it, *then* you can figure out what business model you want to use.

    Note, however, that the claims made by the submittor is basically a laundry list of the kinds of claims that makes seasoned cryptographers go "oh no, not again."

    1. Re:If you want to make money, patent it by markk · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I would reinforce this comment - the claims in the original submission are invalid on the face of it in the real world. There is no plaintext attack on a real 'otp' with enough randomness in the key since the key is used only once.
      To all of the people with new cryptosystems - with all due respect - we now have really good, well understood cyphering methods up to a level where the failure in security won't be from the method of encryption. Key exchange could be improved, but actual symmetric cypher methods aren't going to revolutionize things anymore. We can always use better, and people will continue to look for flaws (as in Rijndael) but none of this is big time.

    2. Re:If you want to make money, patent it by ENOENT · · Score: 5, Informative

      Note, however, that the claims made by the submittor is basically a laundry list of the kinds of claims that makes seasoned cryptographers go "oh no, not again."

      No kidding. Read sci.crypt for a while, and you'll see any number of "revolutionary" encryption schemes, most of which are obviously junk invented by naive crypographer-wannabes. (Note: I'm not a cryptographer, nor do I play one on TV.)

      At least the submitter understands that OTP only works if you have a big chunk of shared secret data to use as a pad. However, his mention that OTP is vulnerable to chosen-plaintext attacks makes me think that he's just another crackpot. Think about it--you use the random bits in the OTP only once, and they contain no information about future bits in the pad. Thus, OTP is 100% resistant to chosen plaintext.

      My advice: DON'T BOTHER SPENDING ANY MONEY ON PATENTING THIS!!! If you decide that I'm full of it, at least do some serious study into cryptography before giving a dime to a patent lawyer.

      --
      That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
    3. Re:If you want to make money, patent it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yeah, we see this all the time on sci.crypt. It's the cryptologic
      analog to inventing a perpetual motion machine.

      Not only is the true one-time-pad proven to provide perfect secrecy, we
      can also prove that no system that uses less key material can provide
      perfect secrecy (at least not for arbitrary plaintext languages).

      The results are found in the first half of Claude Shannon's seminal and
      quite readable paper:

      "Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems", Bell System Technical
      Journal, vol.28-4, page 656--715, 1949.

      which is available on-line, see:

      http://www.cs.ucla.edu/~jkong/research/security/ sh annon.html

      Also, the "known plaintext" weakness of the OTP is a myth. The idea is
      that an attacker who knows the plaintext can compute the ciphertext of
      any message he chooses, and substitute it for the intended ciphertext.
      But the classic OTP is a secrecy system, and attacks on authentication
      are irrelevant to its function.

      We can, incidentally, also obtain provable authentication, and this also
      requires use of one-time keys. Look up "universal hashing" for further
      info.

      --
      --Bryan Olson
      Cryptologic Engineer, Certicom Corp

    4. Re:If you want to make money, patent it by aero6dof · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The corollary to this advice would be to hire a lawyer to write an NDA and hire an competent, independent cryptographer under that NDA to advise you about the novelty of your encryption approach. This will give you an idea of its worth pursuing the patent. I would think that you should explore not only the encryption algorithm, but the physical key-management apparatus that you're envisioning.

    5. Re:If you want to make money, patent it by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm reasonably sure that he has just described a one time pad. For a second I wasn't sure what he meant, since that happens to be the only unbreakable crypto possible, but then I got it.

      He didn't say 'incredibly weak.'

      Rather, he said 'incredibly week.'

      How can something be week (a calendar unit) rather than a week? While sometimes nouns are used as adverbs, extending the meaning. The most likely meaning for the adverb week, would be: having to do with a week, or weeks. And since our names for the week-days come from ancient gods, he was probably likening the one time pad to the unbeatable thunder god Thor.

      Thor, of course, would be totally unbreakable.

      For someone to see all this instantly--and then call it obvious--means that he is on a level of genius that our puny mathematical brains cannot possibly understand--nor should we try to.

      (Mathematics is simply the art of finding equivalent statements. Psycho-analyze all the word problems and you're guareenteed at least D--so build from there.)

    6. Re:If you want to make money, patent it by coyote-san · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or we can save him the effort and tell him what his "revolutionary" idea is, thus simultaneously providing proof of prior art (making the patent question moot) and that he needs to spend more time studying cryptology before his next big idea.

      The fact that he says it's "multiple use" and that it requires a "digital key" suggests that he's using the key as the seed for some crypto PRNG (e.g., you recursively encrypt your salt with your key as the password, then pull out some of the bytes to create your OTP. Put the random salt as the first few bytes of the cipher text and voila, instant multiuse OTPs. Not weak (not if you use a good crypto PRNG), but hardly an original thought that would not occur to the casual practitioner of
      the science.

      (There's also the pesky fact that most experts would consider this approach foolhardy. If you have a decent encryption routine, use it to encrypt the data directly. Crypto PRNGs are believed to be strong, but I don't know if this has been formally studied. There would well be an emergent property in the implementation that makes the PRNG highly predictable.)

      A refinement would involve recognizing that DSA keys actually have a 'generator' attribute, and you could use that to map your salt to a seemingly random sequence of values. It should be much more efficient than the recursive crypto approach, but again is hardly original since the very reason that these keys include generators is that they're used to efficiently generate ephemeral session keys via the same property.

      --
      For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
  3. Patent it... by MagicFab · · Score: 5, Funny

    then encrypt the patent.

    --
    Notepad specialist & FAT administrator, group training available
  4. The same thing I do every day... by killmenow · · Score: 5, Funny

    Try to take over the world...

  5. Feed the Family by syrupMatt · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fact is, if i need money, then liscense it to a company who will do the dirty work for me and live off the proceeds. If it is, in fact, a brilliant discovery, you should fight for provisions which will ensure some amount of open review.

    Not everyone who comes up with such a proven idea is a software developer, and they may not be able to live off of creating cutting edge software or maintaining said software for a living. The bazaar method doesn't apply to theory.

    --
    "Moving through the masses like a fish through water." syrup
  6. Hehehehe by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ten bucks says five mins after he publishes it it will get broken.

    "many-time" otp are quite nonsense. See the problem is people think that good ciphers can have security approaching the OTP. The OTP is an absolutely different type of security.

    For instance, *no* ammount of time is sufficient to break an OTP without the key. Whereas a block cipher can be broken at least in theory.

    I'd suggest to the original poster that he try to get his design published. When it gets horribly broken it will serve as a learning experience as how "not" to approach science.

    Tom

    --
    Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    1. Re:Hehehehe by Proaxiom · · Score: 5, Informative
      You're right. He says he has proven it, but before spending $20,000 on a patent it would be a very smart thing to have a cryptographer review his proof. I suspect a flaw would be readily apparent to someone skilled with the subject.

      It can't be 'unbreakable' under the normal definition of the word. It's impossible because truly unbreakable crypto requires a key that contains at least as much information as the plaintext, and a 'many-time pad' does not satisfy this precondition.

      It would seem to me that this simple observation disproves his claim without even knowing his algorithm.

    2. Re:Hehehehe by ajs · · Score: 5, Informative

      And now you can all laugh at the sick guy (I have a head cold) for describing how a rotating cypher attack can be used against an OTP, thus rendering a century of research moot.

      I'm going home now... :-)

    3. Re:Hehehehe by X-rated+Ouroboros · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Indeed.

      I seriously doubt the guy has looked at this from all angles or considered how it would be implemented digitally. Some ideas that seem really good on paper break down when you get to the nuts and bolts of how to do it with bits and bytes. Considering the guy's tendency to throw around OTP and, gag, "many-time pad," I don't see a lot of familarity with the way these terms are percieved by the lay crypto.

      Still, if he's got that much faith in it, patent it, or write it up and copyright the description (not really ironclad, but it could get a settlement if OmniCorp steals the idea). I think the only reason the guy is asking about rather than just doing it is because he fully expects it to be broken shortly after going public and all the costs of filing a patent going to waste.

      Considering he says it's invulnerable to known plaintext attack he could post some plaintext and ciphertext for people to whack at for a while. It might just be security through obscurity if no one breaks it, but it could also illustrate that while he's so busy looking at ways to break the algorithm he's too close to see he's taking the long route around a much more straightforward (and trivial) transform.

      Posting ciphertext and plaintext and inviting people to attack it should keep the encryption method safe if it's as secure as he thinks it is. If some reverse engineers the algorithm (or an equivalent) it will show it wasn't worth patenting in the first place (or that it's already been patented).

      --
      Simple Machines in Higher Dimensions
  7. Do Nothing by RAzaRazor · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't do anything to make it public. Just keep it for your own personal use.

    That would be the best encryption you can have. The one only you know about.

    1. Re:Do Nothing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Security Through Obscurity Does Not Work. Period.

  8. Your first job: Air it out to the crypto community by Faggot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's heartwarming that you've invented a new form of crypto. However, before anyone takes it seriously, you're going to have to reveal it to the cryptographic community. "Many eyes make bugs shallow" as they say, and in few places is this more important than in crypto. An algorithm you've looked at 10000 times may have a logical error you've never caught, that would be glaring to a knowledgable pair of fresh eyes.

    Plus no self-respecting paranoid freak is ever going to use a new cipher that hasn't had any time in the spotlight. Release it to the field and ask for comments.

    --

    But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.

  9. 99.9 percent sure by PD · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That this invention is a bunch of crap. Most likely scenario: inventor releases a press release that gets widely reported and the most secure thing ever invented. Claims like "unbreakable" and "proven secure" and "many time pad" will be thrown around freely.

    And then someone with a decoder ring will crack that puppy wide open.

    Yawn. Snake oil.

    --
    If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
  10. Well by llamalicious · · Score: 5, Funny

    First, I wouldn't "Ask Slashdot"
    (sound of pitter-pattering many greedy feet scurrying to the nearest PTO)

    Second:
    1. Patent new encryption algorithm.
    2. Sell to highest bidder.
    3. ???
    4. Profit.

    Ah well, you could always be more philanthrophic than me, and support FSF, but hell, I'm just a capitalist at heart.

  11. Support Slashdot with it by egg+troll · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think you should trade this patent for some stock in VA Systems! How could that fail to make you wealthy?!

    --

    C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
  12. You don't lose control when you patent it. by Joel+Ironstone · · Score: 5, Informative

    IF you patent the idea, you retain all rights to give it away freely, sell it or whatever, to whomever. If you don't you lose your rights over the invention.

    I say patent it and then decide based on what offers you get. Once you patent it you can shop around for people to license it to. You can define the terms of the license (3 years and then you can offer it as GPL or NOT)

    Don't be a fool, its your blood and sweat, you deserve to own it.

  13. I was in the same situation; here's what I did by splattertrousers · · Score: 5, Funny

    nbHF48FKJH4F;kjh4LKJHhNB498CN4I
    SKLJ4H9sdflkjh48B3498HW4IFN4IN8
    OKDNJ48458DI4.SL4993;W5497GKH48
    2HCB4KBHS843,JNS,JH43872B34JYB4
    ZMNB48lkjh48BB4JHG8cbhbj8675309

  14. Is it worth patenting? by TheSync · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Patenting something (properly) will cost thousands of dollars and will require a patent lawyer.

    The US is a first-to-invent not a first-to-patent country, so make sure you have a hardcopy of your invention description dated and notarized.

    Then let some Net crypto people beat on your idea, make sure you say "Patent Pending."

    If it holds up, you should easily be able to raise the money to get it patented properly. (Actually, if so, email me, I may know a few investors)

    Judging from your description, I'd say your invention has a high probability of not truly doing what you think it does. Developing novel and useful cryptographic technology is a rare occurance, generally done by people who have a ton of experience in the area. No point in wasting money if it won't stand up to 30 minutes in sci.crypt

  15. Mathematically impossible by Lord+Greyhawk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My invention improves upon the 80 year old One-Time Pad encryption turning it into a 'Many-Time Pad'.

    Information theory proves that the One-Time Pad (OTP) is optimal - it cannot be improved.

    The advantages are proof (i.e. unbreakable) against brute force attacks and known-plaintext attacks (unlike the OTP).

    The OTP has no known-plaintext vulnerability. By submitting even a chosen plaintext to be encrypted, and studying the encrypted message, you only learn the piece of the One-Time pad used on your own content. It does not help you break any other part of any other message.

    The only way to break a OTP is to get a copy the pad or by breaking the random number generator used to create the pad.

    This post's claim is the usual nonsense. So patent it if you wish - release it if you wish - I doubt anyone will find it usable.

    1. Re:Mathematically impossible by AnotherBlackHat · · Score: 5, Insightful
      My invention improves upon the 80 year old One-Time Pad encryption turning it into a 'Many-Time Pad'.

      Information theory proves that the One-Time Pad (OTP) is optimal - it cannot be improved.


      Sorry, I can't let that one pass -
      Information theory doesn't prove anything of the sort.
      OTP are provably unbreakable in one, limited sense.
      There's plenty of room for improvement in all the other senses however.


      The OTP has no known-plaintext vulnerability.

      Not true.
      The traditional XOR - OTP is vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle active change attack.
      Picture a bank deposit protected with an XOR OTP.
      The MitM XORs the account number of the victim with (victim's account number ^ MitM's account number)

      This post's claim is the usual nonsense.

      At least we agree on something.

      - this is not a .sig
  16. Here's a quote... by Bald+Wookie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It is impossible to make money selling a cryptographic algorithm. It's difficult, but not impossible, to make money selling a cryptographic protocol.

    Who said it? Bruce Schneier, one of the current gurus of crypto. Where did he say it? Here on Slashdot

    The whole article is worth a read.

    My perspective is that I seriously doubt your claims. Until there is strong peer review of your entire cryptosystem from top to bottom, I won't touch it. Unless it solves some problem with other cryptosystems already in use, the market won't touch it. If you can these two objections then you might have a shot at some money. Otherwise...

  17. aol... by zsmooth · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does it bother anyone else that the creator of the encryption scheme that will save the world uses AOL? (check his email addy...)

  18. Don't be too sure of yourself by Erbo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I suggest you begin by reading this, and maybe also this, both by Bruce Schneier, one of the foremost experts in cryptography and computer security today. Then re-evaluate your expectations about the potential success of your new algorithm, because it's possible you're deluding yourself.

    I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but there have been a lot of great mathematicians and cryptographers that have tried to design good, secure algorithms over the past few decades. Very few have actually managed to create algorithms that'll stand up under analysis. You may think you've done so, but it's going to take a lot to convince everyone of that.

    --
    Be who you are...and be it in style!
  19. Try to break it by L.+VeGas · · Score: 5, Funny

    Iay avehay ay ewnay encryptionay ethodmay ootay. Itay amecay otay emay inay ay eamdray.

    --
    Best Windows Freeware
  20. My advice - give it away for free by vlad_petric · · Score: 5, Insightful
    IMHO it is much better to become renowned and not make money out of it than waste your money on a patent and get zero return.

    The chances of making money out of a patent are slim. Moreover, the cryptography market is "canibalized" - even if your system is, as you claim, a lot better than the existing techniques, most people will still use something that stood the test of time (e.g. RSA, which has become free)

    Anyway, the US Patent system allows you to publish your idea one year before you file for a patent. Get some peer reviews (a proof is simply not a proof if kept secret) before embarking on a patent adventure.

    --

    The Raven

  21. Get a *provisional* patent by HEbGb · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm surprised no one has mentioned this.

    A provisional patent costs $85, and you don't need a lawyer. It essentially keeps your patent claim alive for one year, and establishes a filing date, allowing you to disclose the invention without (as much) fear of losing your rights.

    Once you assess it's commercial viability, you can decide on the >$10k formal patent.

    I've done this many times. It's definitely the way to go.

  22. What does Crypto-Gram say? by thenerdgod · · Score: 5, Informative

    Quote
    Memo to the Amateur Cipher Designer

    Congratulations. You've just invented this great new cipher, and you want to do something with it. You're new in the field; no one's heard of you, and you don't have any credentials as a cryptanalyst. You want to get well-known cryptographers to look at your work. What can you do?

    Unfortunately, you have a tough road ahead of you. I see about two new cipher designs from amateur cryptographers every week. The odds of any of these ciphers being secure are slim. The odds of any of them being both secure and efficient are negligible. The odds of any of them being worth actual money are virtually non-existent.

    Anyone, from the most clueless amateur to the best cryptographer, can create an algorithm that he himself can't break. It's not even hard. What is hard is creating an algorithm that no one else can break, even after years of analysis. And the only way to prove that is to subject the algorithm to years of analysis by the best cryptographers around.

    "The best cryptographers around" break a lot of ciphers. The academic literature is littered with the carcasses of ciphers broken by their analyses. But they're a busy bunch; they don't have time to break everything. How do they decide what to look at?

    Ideally, cryptographers should only look at ciphers that have a reasonable chance of being secure. And since anyone can create a cipher that he believes to be secure, this means that cryptographers should only look at ciphers created by people whose opinions are worth something. No one is impressed if a random person creates an cipher he can't break; but if one of the world's best cryptographers creates an cipher he can't break, now that's worth looking at.

    The real world isn't that tidy. Cryptographers look at algorithms that are either interesting or are likely to yield publishable results. This means that they are going to look at algorithms by respected cryptographers, algorithms fielded in large public systems (e.g., cellular phones, pay-TV decoders, Microsoft products), and algorithms that are published in the academic literature. Algorithms posted to Internet newsgroups by unknowns won't get a second glance. Neither will patented but unpublished algorithms, or proprietary algorithms embedded in obscure products.

    It's hard to get a cryptographic algorithm published. Most conferences and workshops won't accept designs from unknowns and without extensive analysis. This may seem unfair: unknowns can't get their ciphers published because they are unknowns, and hence no one will ever see their work. In reality, if the only "work" someone ever does is in design, then it's probably not worth publishing. Unknowns can become knowns by publishing cryptanalyses of existing ciphers; most conferences accept these papers.

    When I started writing _Applied Cryptography_, I heard the maxim that the only good algorithm designers were people who spent years analyzing existing designs. The maxim made sense, and I believed it. Over the years, as I spend more time doing design and analysis, the truth of the maxim has gotten stronger and stronger. My work on the Twofish design has made me believe this even more strongly. The cipher's strength is not in its design; anyone could design something like that. The strength is in its analysis. We spent over 1000 man-hours analyzing Twofish, breaking simplified versions and variants, and studying modifications. And we could not have done that analysis, nor would we have had any confidence in that analysis, had not the entire design team had experience breaking many other algorithm designs.

    A cryptographer friend tells the story of an amateur who kept bothering him with the cipher he invented. The cryptographer would break the cipher, the amateur would make a change to "fix" it, and the cryptographer would break it again. This exchange went on a few times until the cryptographer became fed up. When the amateur visited him to hear what the cryptographer thought, the cryptographer put three envelopes face down on the table. "In each of these envelopes is an attack against your cipher. Take one and read it. Don't come back until you've discovered the other two attacks." The amateur was never heard from again.

    I don't mean to be completely negative. People occasionally design strong ciphers. Amateur cryptographers even design strong ciphers. But if you are not known to the cryptographic community, and you expect other cryptographers to look at your work, you have to do several things:

    1. Describe your cipher using standard notation. This doesn't mean C code. There is established terminology in the literature. Learn it and use it; no one will learn your specialized terminology.

    2. Compare your cipher with other designs. Most likely, it will use some ideas that have been used before. Reference them. This will make it easier for others to understand your work, and shows that you understand the literature.

    3. Show why your cipher is immune against each of the major attacks known in literature. It is not good enough just to say that it is secure, you have to show why it is secure against these attacks. This requires, of course, that you not only have read the literature, but also understand it. Expect this process to take months, and result in a large heavily mathematical document. And remember, statistical tests are not very meaningful.

    4. Explain why your cipher is better than existing alternatives. It makes no sense to look at something new unless it has clear advantages over the old stuff. Is it faster on Pentiums? Smaller in hardware? What? I have frequently said that, given enough rounds, pretty much anything is secure. Your design needs to have significant performance advantages. And "it can't be broken" is not an advantage; it's a prerequisite.

    5. Publish the cipher. Experience shows that ciphers that are not published are most often very weak. Keeping the cipher secret does not improve the security once the cipher is widely used, so if your cipher has to be kept secret to be secure, it is useless anyway.

    6. Don't patent the cipher. You can't make money selling a cipher. There are just too many good free ones. Everyone who submitted a cipher to the AES is willing to just give it away; many of the submissions are already in the public domain. If you patent your design, everyone will just use something else. And no one will analyze it for you (unless you pay them); why should they work for you for free?

    7. Be patient. There are a lot of algorithms to look at right now. The AES competition has given cryptographers 15 new designs to analyze, and we have to pick a winner by Spring 2000. Any good cryptographer with spare time is poking at those designs.

    If you want to design algorithms, start by breaking the ones out there. Practice by breaking algorithms that have already been broken (without peeking at the answers). Break something no one else has broken. Break another. Get your breaks published. When you have established yourself as someone who can break algorithms, then you can start designing new algorithms. Before then, no one will take you seriously.

    Creating a cipher is easy. Analyzing it is hard.

    See "Self-Study Course in Block Cipher Cryptanalysis": http://www.counterpane.com/self-study.html

  23. Re:I was in the same situation; here's what I did by MyHair · · Score: 5, Funny

    nbHF48FKJH4F;kjh4LKJHhNB498CN4I
    Don't
    SKLJ4H9sdflkjh48B3498HW4IFN4IN8
    Forget
    OKDNJ48458DI4.SL4993;W5497GKH48
    To Drink
    2HCB4KBHS843,JNS,JH43872B34JYB4
    Your
    ZMNB48lkjh48BB4JHG8cbhbj8675309
    Ovaltine.

    A commercial? What a gip!

  24. Intersections by Ratbert42 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The intersection of the sets {AOL users, guys named Kip, actual inventors} is null.

  25. copyright better than patent? by eagl · · Score: 5, Funny

    Create a little tune and lyrically read your patent submission, any source code, and detailed description of your technology. Then the MPAA's actions will cover you. ROT-13 it and the DMCA will also cover you especially if you also distribute decoder rings with your developer's package (pricing and availability not specified at press time)

  26. Re:learn to play the patent game by gpinzone · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mail it to himself? Why bother? All he's gotta do is encrypt it using his method then post it in a whole bunch of Usenet newsgroups. If his method is really as good as he says it is...

  27. Just tear it up and throw it away.... by autopr0n · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I seriously doubt you've found anything substantial that some of the worlds greatest mathematical minds just sort of 'passed over'. I mean, seriously. It's been proven that the only secure encryption technique is OTP. You could no more have come up with something more secure then I could add 2 + 2 and end up with 64,000.

    Finally, you can actually both "give it to the world" and "make money". In fact, the whole point of the patent system is to get people to give out their secrets by granting them a limited monopoly.

    If you really have something worth while, you can simply license you're concepts for general use. Public Key crypto has been patented for 30 years (almost expired) but it's used everywhere and has been a great boon to secure communications. Why? Because the authors licensed it for reasonable rates and allowed it to be used for free.

    Patents only cost about $700, and once you get one it's yours for the next N years (or whatever, not sure about the exact number of years, it may be different in different fields). You can still let people use it for N-1 years and then try to get money out of it in year N (see the Unisys GIF patent). Patents aren't like trademarks where you have to keep policing them or you lose them, despite what morons on Slashdot (such as Hemos, even... btw whatever happened to him?) seem to believe.

    One other thing:

    The advantages are proof (i.e. unbreakable) against brute force attacks and known-plaintext attacks (unlike the OTP).

    If I'm reading this right, you seem to think OTP is susceptible to brute force attacks. If this is true, you basically know jack about encryption.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
  28. Re:learn to play the patent game by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Document everything. Mail it to yourself. The postmark is sufficient proof of the date.

    That's a complete myth. Just think about how easy it would be to mail yourself an unsealed envelope and place your documents in later.

    From http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/066sidebar.ht ml :

    But don't mail your idea to yourself hoping that the postmark will prove the date you came up with the idea. This oft-tried strategy is filled with legal holes. Instead, file a $10 USPTO disclosure document (see www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/disdo.html).

    From http://www.bpmlegal.com/patqa.html#10 :

    Can I protect myself by sealing a description of my invention in an envelope and mailing it to myself?
    The mythical "postmark patent" offers no protection whatsoever. Having someone sign your written description as a witness would accomplish the same thing - documenting your date of conception of the idea. You might find our Invention Disclosure Form to be helpful in preparing a detailed written description. It doesn't provide any protection, either, but it will help you get your thoughts in order when you contact a patent attorney (our firm, we hope), and you'll save the 37 cents it would cost to mail it to yourself.

  29. Re:learn to play the patent game by warpSpeed · · Score: 5, Informative
    A postmark is NOT a legally valid proof of date.

    But Certified mail is.

  30. No Lawyers/Rich Businessmen Required by Johnboi+Waltune · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just go to the bank you do business with and get a $20,000 loan. If you have a decent credit rating, it should be no problem at all. You could also take out a loan against your 401(k), or even a home equity loan. Rates are great right now. The point is, there's no reason to involve a third party who has an interest in your invention, just to get the funds to patent it.

    --
    "The advanced societies of the future will be driven by competing systems of psychopathology." -JG Ballard
  31. PGP Timestamping Service by Cadre · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, since this is crypto related, I think an even better way would be to use the PGP Timestamping Service.

    It has several different modes, but basically you just encrypt your ideas, send an email to the timestamper with the encrypted files and it will sign the file, and the signature will contain a timestamp and a serial number.

    The signatures are available on a daily basis and are posted weekly at alt.security.pgp for all the world to see.

    --
    All editorial writers ever do is come down from the hill after the battle is over and shoot the wounded.