22 May
2006
22 May
'06
9:33 a.m.
On Mon, 2006-05-22 at 02:50 -0500, chrisisbd@leary.csoft.net wrote:
However you can *only* use machine methods to decrypt something if you know some part of the data can't you? Otherwise how do you know when you have got the right answer?
Reminds me of the ultimate weakness of the Enigma, it never cyphered a character as itself.
So when using a machine to brute force it you just rotate the key until every character in the decoded text is different to the same position in the encoded text and then you know there is a very high chance you have the correct key.
That and the Germans cyphering the same block of text (the header) of their weather reports every time they sent them.