I am neither a cryptographer nor a cryptanalyst.
Design of search engines and teaching marketing have taken up
the bulk of the last twenty years for me. Out of naivety, perhaps,
a decade ago I found myself spending a couple of summers under
the illusion that I could design a technique that would put an
end to pirating software. (Sigh!) At the end of the process, I
returned to M.I.T. in July 1996 for a course in Cryptography and
Computer Security. The teachers were competent and interesting,
the mathematics duly impressive. However, a niggling feeling grew
during the course: The thought forms of cryptography have crystallized
along certain lines, and there is an unspoken assumption that
everyone -- cryptographers and cryptanalysts, good guys and adversaries
-- would think within the established framework.
Cryptographers and cryptanalysts will find
in Pryvit a method that is derived outside the box. Franciscan
University of Steubenville is a teaching rather than a research
school; there is a strong service component to our creativity.
Pryvit therefore started with a focus on the needs
of people and on providing benefits.
The cryptology community may be interested
in a self-assessment of the vulnerability landscape
in situations where Pryvit is used. Some suggestions are offered
for higher security in cases where Pryvit
is required in defense against a highly motivated, competent adversary.
Would you like to see source
code? The essential files were included on microfiche with
the patent application. These source code
functions are posted for download. You will see rather quickly
that Pryvit is not rocket science or sophisticated mathematics.
Pryvit has one simple virtue: it works. If you care to benchmark
the process, you will find it works rather quickly!
This section concludes with an invitation
to cryptographers and cryptanalysts to evaluate this new technology.
If you are a professional in either of these fields, your feedback
is requested for posting at this web site.
