I was basically saying (tautologically) that we can break any cipher except for the ones where we can’t. So if you use any of those broken ciphers, an attacker can infer the cipher, key, or plaintext, to the extent that it’s possible.
My non-tautological inference, then, is that nature isn’t able to intelligently design ciphers, and so her patterns should be much easier for a cryptographer to discern than those that exist in many human-designed ciphers. A good cipher destroys the patterns that would otherwise clue in the attacker on the key or plaintext, and nature should be a lot worse at this, and a lot more limited in her “cipher design”. (For example, unlike with AES, she can’t layer a cipher so that it first destroys linearity, then permutes the whole thing to resist differential analysis, etc.)
Furthermore, cryptographers warn against using a secret cipher you designed, and this is partly because you won’t be able to find all the possible attacks on your own. In other words, for the average person, even if you intelligently design a cipher, an attacker can infer the cipher (by finding its patterns) and plaintext, even if they didn’t know the cipher to begin with. Since nature’s “designs” will be even less intelligent, they probably aren’t resistant to the cryptanalytic methods used in the unknown-cipher case.
Also see my reply to Nancy where I argue that discoveries in astronomy followed the same pattern as frequency analysis.
discoveries in astronomy followed the same pattern as frequency analysis.
An interesting thought. Do you think that code-breakers are likely to have anything to teach scientists? I am having visions of taking code-breaking software, inputting scientific data, and unraveling the secrets of the universe.
Do you think that code-breakers are likely to have anything to teach scientists? I am having visions of taking code-breaking software, inputting scientific data, and unraveling the secrets of the universe.
So am I (albeit maybe in a more limited sense). I created this topic to find out if any crypto experts here noticed any of the parallels I did. Seeing as they are skeptical about the possibility that code-breakers have anything to teach scientists, I think I’ll have to develop this idea more before I can be more justified in believing they do or don’t.
In particular, I’ll want to make the mappings between the plaintext and ciphertext to their science analogs more explicit. Also, I’ll want to design ciphers based on physical laws and see how code-breakers would infer the cipher (both in cases scientists have solved and those they haven’t).
I first thought that this would require (the very difficult task of) basing a trapdoor one-way function on a physical law, but now I don’t think so, because I needn’t make it a public key algorithm—a pure private key cryptosystem (on the assumption Alice and Bob have securely shared the cipher and key) would work as well, as cryptanalysts can break many of these kinds of system. And those kinds (like the Caesar cipher) don’t involve a trapdoor one-way function.
“as many patterns in the ciphertext as you can” is too vague to be useful.
If it were specific, I doubt we have any such methods. What makes you think that we do?
I was basically saying (tautologically) that we can break any cipher except for the ones where we can’t. So if you use any of those broken ciphers, an attacker can infer the cipher, key, or plaintext, to the extent that it’s possible.
My non-tautological inference, then, is that nature isn’t able to intelligently design ciphers, and so her patterns should be much easier for a cryptographer to discern than those that exist in many human-designed ciphers. A good cipher destroys the patterns that would otherwise clue in the attacker on the key or plaintext, and nature should be a lot worse at this, and a lot more limited in her “cipher design”. (For example, unlike with AES, she can’t layer a cipher so that it first destroys linearity, then permutes the whole thing to resist differential analysis, etc.)
Furthermore, cryptographers warn against using a secret cipher you designed, and this is partly because you won’t be able to find all the possible attacks on your own. In other words, for the average person, even if you intelligently design a cipher, an attacker can infer the cipher (by finding its patterns) and plaintext, even if they didn’t know the cipher to begin with. Since nature’s “designs” will be even less intelligent, they probably aren’t resistant to the cryptanalytic methods used in the unknown-cipher case.
Also see my reply to Nancy where I argue that discoveries in astronomy followed the same pattern as frequency analysis.
An interesting thought. Do you think that code-breakers are likely to have anything to teach scientists? I am having visions of taking code-breaking software, inputting scientific data, and unraveling the secrets of the universe.
So am I (albeit maybe in a more limited sense). I created this topic to find out if any crypto experts here noticed any of the parallels I did. Seeing as they are skeptical about the possibility that code-breakers have anything to teach scientists, I think I’ll have to develop this idea more before I can be more justified in believing they do or don’t.
In particular, I’ll want to make the mappings between the plaintext and ciphertext to their science analogs more explicit. Also, I’ll want to design ciphers based on physical laws and see how code-breakers would infer the cipher (both in cases scientists have solved and those they haven’t).
I first thought that this would require (the very difficult task of) basing a trapdoor one-way function on a physical law, but now I don’t think so, because I needn’t make it a public key algorithm—a pure private key cryptosystem (on the assumption Alice and Bob have securely shared the cipher and key) would work as well, as cryptanalysts can break many of these kinds of system. And those kinds (like the Caesar cipher) don’t involve a trapdoor one-way function.