ietf-openpgp
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Re: confusing terminology

2005-02-08 11:08:12

Rick van Rein writes:
For this reason, I would never, ever encrypt without compressing first.
This is the cryptographic advise I would like to see in the indicated place.

I'm afraid I don't agree with this as cryptographic advice.  If your
cipher is so weak that you are afraid to encrypt English text, you need
a new cipher!  Not a new compression algorithm.

It's fine if you want to say that compression increases the entropy
density which could in theory make the cryptanalyst's problem slightly
harder, but I would definitely not go so far as to advise or imply that
failing to compress is cryptographically insecure.

Hal Finney


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