Re: IMPORTANT: RSA Data Security Challenge participants please read
At 01:00 PM 2/26/97 PST, Bruce Perens wrote:
>1. Do we want it? Do we really want free software to be associated with
> code-breaking in the eyes of the uneducated public? I'm not sure that
> would not hurt us. Just think about the articles on a government code
> being broken using a "hacker" tool called "Debian". Also, some of the
> people participating most likely don't have permission to use their
> employer's machines for outside cryptography projects (I'm thinking of
> a certain person at a U.S. military facility). I don't want to be around
> when that gets exposed.
Well Bruce, you've given them a head start to find debian@debianb.org
already by posting to a public mailing list :-)
Seriously though, the whole idea is that it's just a project to beat the
cryptography and say that it _can_ be cracked - fair enough, over a long
time, but it can still be cracked nevertheless. If anyone cracks it then
it brings an awareness to the government about the potential of computers
and their need for new cryptograhy.
>2. Does it hurt us in other ways? For example, will we be perceived
> as working against people we should be working with?
IMO no. Who in the Linux world hasn't heard of Debian? When a person
decides to run Linux they basically have a a few coices; Debian, Redhat and
Slackware - I can't think of any others that are as popular! So if
everyone knows or has heard that Debian is a Linux distribution we'll
always be associated with linuxnet.
>3. Are there better ways for us to spend our time? I sure think so.
Bruce, please :-) You've got to consider that some of us administrators
don't have things going wrong, aren't busy and need something to do or just
don't have lives in general - so this is something along the lines of a big
gettogether :-)
It's a compuational challenge. It doesn't matter where we are on any list
on the stats - it's who gets the correct keyspace who gets the price. If I
started under my own email address and cracked it I'd laugh at all of you
and keep the money for myself (oh alright, I'd donate $1 to Debian and $1
to Linux:-). Having said that, we could form our own syndicate and split
the winnings between ourselves, but we're about that - we're doing it under
the Debian name which I consider to be the best thing we can do for the
project.
In fact, I'd like to see more involvment in things as the Debian name - as
I said before, if we exploit our name a bit we may start getting donations
of machines from big companies like other groups.
Just my 2 cents worth.
--
___________________________________________________________________
Karl Ferguson,
Tower Networking Pty Ltd karl@tower.net.au
t/a STAR Online Services karl@debian.org
Tel: +61-9-455-3446 Fax: +61-9-455-2776 http://www.star.net.au
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