ohiodesperado
Member
N_Jay said:
The machine by it's self was useless. Even when we have a machine (the lock) we still needed the book (key) to set the dial's on the machine so we could decode the message.
I can't remember the total number of combinations that were possible.
Of course in this day and age, that code technique is so easy to break with even a slow computer. Once you have the the lock or specifically the design of the lock, you just apply all the possible keys and test it against a dictionary word.
I think the thing that needs to be mentioned here is that plain text encryption is about the simplest type of encryption to break because it's simplicity of verification against a dictionary.
It's done similar to a brute force password hack. You either have it or you don't.
Computer files, MS word documents and the like are similarly simple because or a known preamble in all MS word files, same with other files, the preamble is what gives it away.
With voice communications, it's not that simple. If the encrypted signal still has audio to it, which it would have I with think, you get into needing to do speech recognition in order to decrypt it. And the ***** of it is, a computer can recognize a person by speech as easily as a fingerprint because it's that unique. So you would need to code something that could recognize speech, but not be specific enough to recognize it with enough detail that it would need to have a sample of the person's voice that was being decrypted to begin with.
This is the reason that all sub-audible tones are stripped from encrypted messages, because it puts you one step closer to breaking the hash if you have a reference point to work to, this being true of ALL encryptions. It's much easier to get someplace if you know where you are going to being with.
As far as DES specific encryption, look at what has been broken. The specifics of what was encrypted to begin with. It's all computer files, so that is a starting point in its self. You already have found the path and destination. It would of course need to be a data file of some sort to be worth hashing to begin with. There are a specific number of data files that exist, and each has specific preambles that allow the software that created it to recognize it. So you are testing a brute force hack against a finite number of possibilities.
Once you find something that looks like a preamble then you have a hit. There will no doubt be several false positives but that number will be significantly less than the total number of possibilities and one of course will be correct.
Voice is not that simple, just a simple 70's style inverter style scrambler run into a digitizer, with no encryption at the digital level can be a reasonably strong encryption if no one is looking for it and even voice recognition is not going to work unless you are aware that the system is scrambled at the audio level. Add a 5 bit key or even a bit inverter to it, and figure out how to reverse it, without knowing the technology behind it. Once again, you can't get there if you are not sure how to get there in the first place. Mind you I spelled it out here, but say I didn't and handed this so someone to decrypt. There is no point of reference to get to at the audio level. Here is my point, DES is secure for voice, and if someone really wanted to get silly with it, if the encrypted signal was double encrypted, meaning the digital information was encrypted and then encrypted again, there would be no possible way of breaking that without both keys in any reasonable time frame even if you have the latest stuff, and even 70's technology, at the digital encryption level, if done correctly, would be near impossible to break.
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