I wrote the author of the challenge. He responded (quoted with
permission)
<quote>
If you had received my previous email, with accompnaying URL (below),
you would know how I encrypted this message and have my source code.
> Will you provide source to the encryption code?
Yes. See:
http://www.well.com/user/abs/Crypto/
> Avoid software which uses secret algorithms. This is not considered a
> safe means of protecting data. If the vendor isn't confident that its
> encryption method can withstand scrutiny, then you should be wary of
> trusting it.
I couldn't agree more. That's why I'm inviting attack.
To be clear, the contents of message2.bin were created by xor-ing my
English plain text with a chunk of a jpg file which is NOT on the web.
It is a picture I took myself and scanned. I am interested to see if
anyone can use statistical techniques or special knowledge of jpg's to
crack this without the key.
</quote>
--
Mike Stay
Programmer / Crypto guy
AccessData Corp.
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
