Gents,

The reason I posted this is because of the recent rash of stories about safari company's and to some extent clients, being screwed, sorry I mean "investigated" with the Zim Government. I know many PH and safari Company's have bank accounts outside of Zim for obvious reasons, but it may pay these folks to think how they do there transactions now. Whats the old saying?? " Careless Talk Costs Lives??"

Encyption is one answer but if the encryption is detected those goons are going to assume the worst and I would bet the users are going to come under extra scrutiny at the very least. Remember, you have no rights to protect you in the land of Robber Bob!

Regards,

Pete

jpb,

Are you sure that these codes are secure? I some how doubt the NSA or GCHQ is going to jump up and down bragging about breaking them!

I remember a story about the theory behind Public Key Crytography and how two brilliant Americans invented it (can't remember when but not that long ago..early 1980's?) and from that others went on to develop RSA and PGS..However, it is now known that an Undergraduate working for the UK GCHQ had "discovered" the fundemental principles many years earlier and quite independantly to the American guys, but GCHQ kept it a secret, at least from the public. Who knows if it was ever shared with the American NSA or perhaps they too discovered it as well, as this break through was the Holy Grail of Crytography for a long while.
Having said all that, like you I very much doubt that the Zim Government can count to ten collectively never mind break codes!

Regards

Pete

What this looks like is a feeble attempt to hold the ISP's responsible for what mail they transact, much like he holds the newspapers responsible for what they publish. I do know that some of the operators in Zim are worried that the "tax man" is coming after them. There was even a rumor that was started saying that they could get into a PC remotely to look at records of transactions. While this is technically possible (what isn't?) in some specific and targeted scenarios, it is logistically impossible on a broad scale. My feeling is that both of these are meant to intimidate, with no technical backing whatsoever.

Firstly, Mugabe is sure wasting time and effort on this one! It is WAY too easy to use encryption (and of a level that (we are pretty sure!) not even the US can break on its supercomputers). Surely nothing at Mugabe's disposal can crack what is freely available.

Secondly, if he bans all encryted email it is easy to embed (hidden and encrypted) messages within images. They are very difficult to detect, and the software to do this can be found with any search engine. Images with encrypted embedded text can also be downloaded via webpages if one wants to avoid email altogether.

Both technologies are free to download from the web, and well beyond what Robber Bob could crack (or, in the case of the latter) even detect!

jpb

Hi Pete E

No, I'm not sure that any existing algorithm is unbreakable (as I said "we are pretty sure" !). However, the current thinking is that if a particular encryption can be broken, it is likely only the US that could do it.

If one was worried, the best way would be hiding encrypted messages in images -- breaking top level encryption would require even the US government to make a concerted effort, but first the encrypted message would have to be detected among the millions of images flying through the internet.

One would of course use a pornographic image so that your image would fit in with the vast majority of internet traffic!

I'd think I'd also give my email the subject "enlarge your penis" or "buy viagra" so that it would pass unnoticed in the flood of such spam email!

jpb

"Loose lips sink ships"....live by that and you won't have to bother with 'enlarge your penis' titles...

Put "Al Qaeda masterplan" and "Osama bin Ladin's new hideout" in your email plus an encrypted message and see how long it takes them to break it.

Nitrox and JeffreyDanmark

Quite possibly, but the computer community by and large does have any faith in the omnipotence of the US to break every one of the dozens of encryption algorithms... I'm glad that I don't have anything interesting to hide though!

My comments, however, are focussed on the topic of the thread -- and the thought that Mugabe's minions could break top-level encryption, or detect embedded text in image files is indeed laughable. *MAYBE* the US can, but first they have to detect a recipient or message for attention. I totally agree with NitroX's observations:

Quote:

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With the volume of emails they are going to find it pretty hard to police.

First they will have to find enough goons who can read.

Second they will need to know how to turn on a computer. Most of the goons computer experience is with a knobkerrie.

Thirdly they will have to track down the right ones and must be sober and not drugged up on dagga at the time.

---

jpb

Nitrox
Good point - he will have black Surburbans pulling up his driveway - even in Sweden SAPO will hand you over to Uncle Sam in a hartbeat

Cheers,

Andr�

With the volume of emails they are going to find it pretty hard to police.

First they will have to find enough goons who can read.

Second they will need to know how to turn on a computer. Most of the goons computer experience is with a knobkerrie.

Thirdly they will have to track down the right ones and must be sober and not drugged up on dagga at the time.

One must never underestimate one's opposition though, just use some simple code.

I think this is more like Robber Mugabe's paranoia with being called a thieving ass bandit than tracking down US$ not going into his Swiss bank account. He is a insane dictator and can't take criticism.