Re: PLEASE HELP - How do I include OpenSSL in my code? <OT: Cryptographic laws>

Andrew Poelstra said:

On 2006-05-13, Richard Heathfield <invalid@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

And in any case, inventing a reasonably secure cryptosystem is, frankly,
trivial. The tricky bit is not the "technology" if that's the word, but
the usage - a great many ciphers are cracked not because they are
inherently weak but because they are misused.

True; of course, most people who hear that believe that ciphertext[i] =
plaintext[i] ^ 5 is a "reasonably secure cryptosystem".

And so it is, provided nobody actually tries to crack it (which, again, is
true of most cryptosystems!).

When people do try to roll their own, it is sometimes embarrassing to see
just how quickly they can be broken. A guy I used to work with came up with
what he thought was an uncrackably complex scheme. He had spent several
days designing it. He gave me no algorithm, just some ciphertext, and it
took me about ten minutes. <sigh>

--
Richard Heathfield
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29/7/1999
http://www.cpax.org.uk
email: rjh at above domain (but drop the www, obviously)
.