Digital Fortress A revolutionary encryption technique??

[nakulgupta 0]

Have any of you read Digital Fortress? It's by the same guy who wrote The Da Vinci Vode(Dan Brown). If you haven't better get it. It's awesome!! Apart from being a cliffhanger it's got a solid base in super-computer's and encryption techniques. A rotating clear text pass key may not be viable now but i have another idea that might work. There are plenty of encryption software availabe out there. Another thing that changes the file is compression. My idea is based on the combination of these two. Lets take a notepad file. I made a file with my name and zipped it. Opening the zip file in notepad gave me the text to read. I then changed the extension from .zip to .txt and zipped it again. When i opened the file in notepad what i wanted was solved. No part of the text was comprehendible!! Now this can be repeated plenty of times using different softwares, extensions. You can make your own encrypted text message!!Now lets fit encryption into the picture. In any one stage we can encrypt the file, change the extension, zip it, and compress it again!! Thus after a certain point decrypting become dificult if you dont know the sequence. I'd like to know if this idea is feasible and can any member work on a program to do this?? Maybe we can generate some revenue off it! Seriously are there any downsides to this technique?? i dont know programming so i would need help in this from any member...

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

Thats a cool idea nakul Maybe we can start off something at our opensource collaborative development community that we're about to launch soon. Check keeping for new announcements - we'lll be done real soon

[nakulgupta 0]

I dont mean to double post but another thing just occured to me. If we use different extensions in different stages will it make a difference in the overall security??

[nakulgupta 0]

Thats a cool idea nakul Maybe we can start off something at our opensource collaborative development community that we're about to launch soon. Check keeping for new announcements - we'lll be done real soon

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sure thing...

[qwijibow 0]

So, you are talking about piping data through a compression porgram several times to achieve encryption ????

you could to that with gzip

compressed once.

bash-2.05b$ echo "hello world" | gzip -fcĂźĂhBĂHĂĂĂW(Ă/IĂĄ-ÂŻ

compressed twice

bash-2.05b$ echo "hello world" | gzip -fc |  gzip -fcĂhBĂŻĂŚ``¿åĂĂ|ĂĂŁĂŹĂĂĄ▒çþOy>dbĂ¾ÌXĂĂĂĂĂþß

copressed 5 times

bash-2.05b$ echo "hello world" | gzip -fc | gzip -fc | gzip -fc | gzip -fc | gzip -fc#ĂhB[¤#ĂhBĂŻĂŚ`PžåĂĂĂhpĂŞÂż<;Úý³}39PsĂŤĂąJ=ÿê_itaͳó``pnFÂĄC'úª))Ă LĂŤĂ[

it looks nice...
but it is by no means secure.

it may stop your little sister readng your diary, but if you need to store things securely, use disk encryption with a large random password. or GNU PGP to encrypt files.

I dont mean to double post but another thing just occured to me. If we use different extensions in different stages will it make a difference in the overall security??

it will slightly change the output of some compression programs, IF that porgram also stores the origonal file name... like a tar archive.

but it will not change the securety. There is no securety, sorry.

if you are interested in securety, look up single padded Xor encryption.
its fairly easy to program, theoretically un-breakable, and doesnt use passwords.

for example, iof you used it to encrypt a 1mb file, you would first generate a 1mb block of memory (array) of random data. each bit from the file are Xor'ed together...

Xor table...
A B Xor
0 0 0
0 1 1
1 0 1
1 1 0

you then keep the Xored file, and the random data file.

do de-crypt, just run the process again.

aslong as nobody ever has both 1mb files, the origonal data is safe, andu un breakable, provided that the random data is truely random.

thedrawbacks ofcourse, is that its quite impracticle. it doubles the size of the data.

[nakulgupta 0]

My results with the zip feature of Win XP

1st compression

PK     ¤â2V*t1         myname.txtnakulPK     ¤â2V*t1                      myname.txtPK      8   -  

Over here nakul is visible. Now here's what happened in the second compression.

PK    °¤â2š]ĂE   {      myname1.txtĂ°ffĂĄb Â5KÂŚâŚiâ˘Â˛Ă  Ă­ĂKĂMĂ+Š(ĂKĂ.Ă[tab][/tab]Ă°fdĂĄĂ­ ,âĂŚ oV6Ë#ĆÂĂÂŤ  PK    °¤â2š]ĂE   {                    myname1.txtPK      9   n  

As you can see only the file name is visible and not the content.
3rd compression

PK    äâ2ťþ¯ĂĹ   ½      myname2.txtĂ°ffa``Ă `Ă°dĹĄĂNÂĂCÂŽ@^5sqne^bnÂŞÂĄ^IE[tab][/tab]áâĄÂ´Â´âĄIÂÂŚĂĂ$[3§JlbºŠĂ#tvĂ­ĂŻ3žWÂľWjĹĂ´>ÂŁwâĂłCZĹ ĂĂckeX$$Eè´<cĂ3ĂŤÂQnfÂpÂu5CâŹ7#â7nĂť @J#ĂĂ ĂbBK ÂV  PK    äâ2ťþ¯ĂĹ   ½                    myname2.txtPK      9   Âľ    

4th compression using WinRAR into a .RAR file

Rar! ĂÂs         Âąt Â0     â°w6ÂĽâ20     myname3.txt Ă°:ĂtPK    äâ2ťþ¯ĂĹ   ½      myname2.txtĂ°ffa``Ă `Ă°dĹĄĂNÂĂCÂŽ@^5sqne^bnÂŞÂĄ^IE[tab][/tab]áâĄÂ´Â´âĄIÂÂŚĂĂ$[3§JlbºŠĂ#tvĂ­ĂŻ3žWÂľWjĹĂ´>ÂŁwâĂłCZĹ ĂĂckeX$$Eè´<cĂ3ĂŤÂQnfÂpÂu5CâŹ7#â7nĂť @J#ĂĂ ĂbBK ÂV  PK    äâ2ťþ¯ĂĹ   ½                    myname2.txtPK      9   Âľ     Ă={ @

The downsides..the file size increases and with Win RAR RAR! is visible...

This may sound offending but i know what i'm talking about.....always.

[Dream1405241490 0]

umm a few things, remeber anything one man can make, another can unmake.Your idea, while orginal fresh and intresting would never really stop any NSA h3x0rz (haha i got to throw that in there) because really encryption IS the way to go. The truly unbreakable code is the Navajo code durning the pacific war, it was their own language modified into code and thus unbreaable to the japanese so I say make up your own language! That way it would be unbreakable.Now onto the book, its too formualted like all of Dan Brown's books, they all follow the same formula.Main character thinks he knows someone is good and someone is bad, but no the good guy is actually working with the bad guy, then in the end he figures out the good guy is good and bad guy is bad... everyone of his books (Angels and Demons, Da Vinci Code, Digital Fortress are all like that) its discription of Cryptology is wayy off but hey its a thriller so i guess anything goes. Intresting read, though not acurate, heh

[nakulgupta 0]

I agree, but it was just an idea...i mean throw in some encryption here or there too would make it pretty tough. Agreed it's breakable but here's something. Lets say we "compress" it ten times using different software, throw in an encryption or two. Now anybody trying to break it would have to try soo many combinations!! And since it's all mixed up i.e. You dont know whether it's an encryption or compression you wouldnt be able to get through quick enough....On the books, agreed they r formulated but if half of the stuff in DF is true then we're at a severe loss of privacy.. I mean something like the Transltr...could it be true??

[Dream1405241490 0]

well it isn't the transltr, I don't believe that exist in any shape or form, however there is the ECHELON

NSA, in combination with the equivalent agencies in the United Kingdom (Government Communications Headquarters), Canada (Communications Security Establishment), Australia (Defence Signals Directorate), and New Zealand (Government Communications Security Bureau), and otherwise known as the UKUSA group, is believed to be responsible for, among other things, the operation of the ECHELON system. Its capabilities are suspected to include the ability to monitor a large proportion of the world's transmitted civilian telephone, fax and data traffic. The system has as one of its most important bases the nominally RAF-run station at Menwith Hill (54.0162 N; 1.6826 W) near Harrogate, Yorkshire.
Many people oppose NSA's operations, arguing that NSA infringes on Americans' privacy by spying on the United States' own citizens, and that this has occurred in violation of NSA's charter prohibiting just such acts. In addition, ECHELON is considered with indignation by citizens of other countries, with widespread suspicion that the United States government uses it for motives other than its national security, including for economic intelligence. Others say that what NSA does is necessary. It has been suggested that in practice Echelon implements an end run around legal restrictions on internal surveillance by having partner agencies spy on the citizens of other partner's countries, thereby avoiding illegal spying on their own citizens.

Bascially the NSA still denies its existance while the UK and Austrila already admitted its existance, scary isn't it?

[nakulgupta 0]

Damn scary dream...damn scary..hope it meets with the same end as Transltr

[vhortex 1]

Well security is just base on the knowledge that the attacker dont know the mathematical equations involved in the encryption.As far as I am concern, I have read an article arguing that every encryption is just base on the prime numbers in the numeric system. Dont know how this stuffs work though but it become a shock when I have found an article and some proof in a site a few months ago pertaining to private keys.The site poster put up a challenge and ends up with resulst regarding a PGP keys [an encryption that was widely accepted as most secure] attack that yields a positive result of a match in less than 2 months which is in contrast on the security sites claims that it will take you more than a thousand years to undo the encryption.I also made some test and research about the other encryptions and foud out that there are no perfect way of protection if the encrypted message of file will travel as a full.However I found out this thing..I use double md5 encryption on a file then split it in some fragments and used "stegano" based technology on the fragments to load and insert them inside pictures and ship the pictures in different orders.What happen is that, those who intercept my sent images knows that their are hidden infos on some of them but dont know how to extract them and if ever they found out how, they will spend a lot of time gluing the pieces together and search for the encryption used on the glued pieces.fragmentation is sometimes much better than multiple encryption..

[iGuest 3]

Digital FortressDigital Fortress

But the echeolon, if it does apply to the fax, and phone tranmissions then it must be encrypting the codes implied there. Then hypothetically, like anything can be encrypited if one knows how to, using mathematical logic all math, or codes really is in relation so the echeleon would technically work much like the "transltr," thus making Australia, and the UK correct. And in general could work with all codes, so anything that you email will never be safe. Now on the Digital Fortress matter, anything that is done can be undone like Nakul's version of the digital fortress so his encryption compressing the numbers through a computer software will and can be uncompressed into cleartext, making it not accurate because it does have one solution. So to succesfully get a digital fortress you need your algorithm to have any possibility to the algorithm being the solution, but only one applying to the message. This may seem impossible but really it is not because if you look at x, being the the clear text it is one out of y! being all the permutations, or possibilities that is the algorithm. Now if you put this into a formula 1/y!=x, then to apply to the digital fortress you'd would have to encrpt the blueprints by making sure that it is a possibility that makes sense word speaking, but at the same time make sure every 1/y! also makes sense making it a complete circle so that it is virtualy impossible to figure out which message the sender is trying to give is correct. Now if still don't understand pretend that 1/a!=b, a! being all the possibilities that could work, and the one making it one possibility out of all the permutations. And every peice or 1/a! is equal to b, or the algorithm that can help one find the clear text, and every b can be a solution to the algorithm because if you solve 1/a!=b as a mathematical problem, b could be 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on. But only 1 of those numbers would be youre answer or if you switch back to a encryption possibility would really apply. Which goes back to a whole circle again. Hope this helps!

It is definetley creepy, right?

-reply by Bingwen Liu