MSc from Bangkok
Apr. 5th, 2002 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ciphergothI got mail the other day, forwarded by my former boss Ruedi, from a Thai MSc student looking for someone to review their thesis. I said "I might not be the expert you're looking for, but send it anyway". I got it this morning.
I basically can't find anything good to say about any of the original work. It's clear they've read descriptions of two or three block ciphers and decided to concoct their own without understanding why the ciphers are built that way; the resulting cipher is no more secure than XOR.
They claim it's been accepted at a couple of conferences, which is either just false or these conferences didn't get anyone even vaguely familiar with the field to look at it first.
So, what should I do with it? Send a quick critique just to them? I've asked them for their thesis advisor's email address directly, so I can get some unbiased advice...
I basically can't find anything good to say about any of the original work. It's clear they've read descriptions of two or three block ciphers and decided to concoct their own without understanding why the ciphers are built that way; the resulting cipher is no more secure than XOR.
They claim it's been accepted at a couple of conferences, which is either just false or these conferences didn't get anyone even vaguely familiar with the field to look at it first.
So, what should I do with it? Send a quick critique just to them? I've asked them for their thesis advisor's email address directly, so I can get some unbiased advice...
no subject
Date: 2002-04-05 01:58 am (UTC)Incidentally, when I was doing my MSc thesis, I looked at previous ones and about 50% were complete wastes of time, so he's not alone.