OSEC

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Subject: Re: AES winner?
From: John Young (jyapipeline.com)
Date: Mon Oct 02 2000 - 18:24:08 CDT

The AES Q&A notes that the technology will be used
to protect non-classified government material. What
cryptosystems are used to protect classified information
 -- that is, either with hardware implementation or with
software only? Or are these methods themselves
classified?

A book filled with bountiful information on WW2
codebreaking by the US is "Secret Messages:
Codebreaking and American Diplomacy 1930-1945,"
by David Alverez, University Press of Kansas, 2000
(available on Amazon).

US cryptanalytic attacks on allies is especially
provocative, including FBI black bag jobs on
embassies in DC such as that of the Vatican -
an operation still classified. The Vatican is said
to have had some of the strongest codes and
ciphers at that time, some which were never
broken.

Is the Vatican still deploying top of the line crypto?
If so, what is the secret to its success? Could it
be secret black mass numerology of medieval
mathematicians, or due to black robe bugles of
North Africans such as the inventor of zero?

Alvarez offers a lot of good stuff on the Brits coaching
the Yankees on how to do world-class crypto -- while
withholding the best stuff from the freshmen. The US
cryptanalysts swear with a grin that they did not attack
the Brits' cryptosystems -- back then. Except by way
of circuitry of the Brits' comm with colonies.