Path: csiph.com!v102.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!eu.feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: =?UTF-8?B?Sm9zaHVhIENyYW5tZXIg8J+Qpw==?= Newsgroups: comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: How much is my encryption algorithm worth? Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2014 21:17:09 -0500 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 27 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Injection-Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 02:17:09 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx05.eternal-september.org; posting-host="b70c1e6ecec505f977af54c9558db3b7"; logging-data="7112"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX18t5yNXNYPSG6EyH7f30dW4Tzw76fwJc/c=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:28.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/28.0 In-Reply-To: Cancel-Lock: sha1:eWQw70x4CqHaWyMc42STt4zzfBk= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.java.programmer:27831 On 3/22/2014 9:53 PM, Daniel Mullarkey wrote: > I developed a lossless, key-based, encryption algorithm that can work > in any modern programming language and it has a 1-to-1 relationship > between the unencrypted values and the encrypted values as long as > the key remains the same and the minimum values and maximum values > are known. The key can also be of virtually limitless size. How much > is this encryption algorithm potentially worth if I patent it? I'd estimate about $0. Cryptography is difficult and surprisingly involved. No one should be willing to trust their data to an algorithm that has not undergone intense cryptanalysis. At the very least, there needs to be signs that the inventor is very much aware of cryptography and what can go wrong. The selection process for the SHA-3, for example, rejected 26 of 51 round-1 applicants due to substantial cryptographic weaknesses, and many of these were presumably proposed by active cryptographic researchers (since it had to be approved well enough by NIST to make it into round 1). Your coyness about describing any elements of the algorithm and the inability to find a more appropriate venue (such as, I don't know, sci.crypt) are highly suggestive that you have no practical experience in understanding why cryptographic algorithms would be weak. -- Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth