Peer review: Python encyphering script

[Nick Mathewson]

In article <3c7dcc76.261969897 at mammoth.usenet-access.com>, A. Jones wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 04:46:31 GMT, QnickQm at alum.mit.edu (Nick
> Mathewson) wrote:
> 
> Yeah.  I've designed dozens of ciphers before, all of which fail
> horribly the second I think about frequency analysis.  On the other
> hand, I've never tried actual encryption... I don't quite grok modular
> mathematics yet enough to do anything but monkey-see-monkey-do copies
> of other opensource ciphers.

Well, if you're going to copy, you may as well spend a while trying to
implement ciphers the crypto community already believes to be secure.  

See:
       http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cryptography-faq/part04
       http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cryptography-faq/part05
       http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cryptography-faq/part06
 
and have fun!  But see...
       http://www.faqs.org/faqs/cryptography-faq/snake-oil
   
  [...]
>>Well, I hope this that didn't dampen your entusiasm for Python!
>>You're off to a good start (esp. for two days!), and I hope we'll hear
>>more of you in the future!
> 
> Good Lord, no, it didn't dampen my enthusiasm.  Hell, it only
> heightens it knowing that there're people in this community who're
> willing to take a look at a total newbie's code and then spend the
> time not only commenting but actually *re-writing* it.  Thank you.

No trouble at all.  That's one of Python's Sneaky Advantages: because
it's so fun to write, people love to tweak it, and so they wind up
giving good advice over python-list/c.l.py.

It's-all-part-of-Guido's-master-plan-ly Yrs,

-- 
 Nick Mathewson    <Q nick Q m at alum dot mit dot edu>
                      Remove Q's to respond.  No spam.