Re: Encryption algorithm used for the IBMi OS passwords.

On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 7:22 PM, Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

But how is that server secured?

Issue credentials. Grant authorities.

I don't think you're getting what I'm asking.

How do we know those credentials are secure?

How do we know that they are of the highest competence? How do we know they

are of the highest integrity?

The question is whether an algorithm is easy, hard, or impossible to break?

I'm talking about the competence and integrity of the people designing
and implementing the algorithms. For competence, I specifically mean
how skilled these people are at cryptography.

how do we know that they haven't willfully,
reluctantly, or inadvertently put a backdoor into an otherwise
mathematically strong implementation?

A number of factors make back-doors impractical:

I don't think back doors are possible with strong, key-based algorithms,

Well, that's just it right there. Note I was careful to say "a
backdoor into an otherwise mathematically strong implementation".
There is a difference between an algorithm and the implementation of
that algorithm. It's analogous to the difference between the
definition of a programming language and an interpreter or compiler
for that language.

I think of a backdoor as an opening in an *implementation* such that
the "strong algorithm" is circumvented. If an algorithm somehow has a
flaw that succumbs to direct attack (i.e. NOT via a backdoor), then I
think we can all agree that no one is going to call that algorithm a
strong one.

For those who have ever lost keys, they wished there had been a back door.

Speak for yourself. When it comes to providing maximum security, any
backdoor is *by definition* a liability, because it directly
undermines security. Any system with a backdoor is the epitome of
"security through obscurity" because the only thing keeping people out
is the obscurity of the backdoor.

John Y.