On Friday 07 September 2001 18:51, Jari Ruusu wrote: > Rob McGee wrote: > > I'm no cryptographer nor mathematician, but ISTM that having only one > > algorithm potentially helps an attacker, because there's only that one > > to contend with. You can look at the system and see which project is in > > use, and if it's Loop-AES you know with high probability that any large > > incomprehensible file could be an AES loop container. But if its Crypto > > API, you have to consider all the alternatives too. And in the crypto > > world you have to think about the future: algorithms might be cracked, > > computing power might make brute force attacks feasible. > > Encryption type is almost always specified in /etc/fstab options, so even > when multiple algorithms are used, an attacker would know the algorithm > anyway. Security comes from keeping the _key_ secret (but you knew that). Real cryptographical security is when when it isn´t possible to crack even if You know the encrytion algortihm (how the safe works) and the cipher text (loop file). So, there is nothing wrong with it - and everything else is just a version of hiding information and not part of (the core of) cryptography. Sincerely, Markus Beck Linux-crypto: cryptography in and on the Linux system Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-crypto/
