Encryption question

[2muchcoffee 3]

Just invented this. At the moment it is a pen and paper cipher. Does this have a practical application.

One or more people want a document sealed/encrypted and only opened if all agree for it to be opened. Each encrypt it with their password and pass it on to the next. When all have it encrypted everyone gets a copy.

Perhaps this already exists.

 

[James 6]

One area it might be useful is for a blind auction.

I think this method would rely upon a per-document key rather than a per-user key, similar to https://github.com/owncloud

The process is outlined in more detail here... https://security.stackexchange.com/a/78933

However this only covers multi-user encryption, rather than your lockdown until all users have completed. Perhaps that aspect is better covered by file access after the encrypting stages?

[2muchcoffee 3]

Thanks for the reply, i am ready the links to your reply. It is close to a threshold encryption but it does have major differences. Most encryption algorithms are not patented so i will post a video of the mapping. This surpasses my ability to code although it is a very simple process. The algorithm can be used in many ways. To discover sequences in arbitrary files, change the entropy of a random file, used as a one time pad. Once again i am new here and want to abide by all rules. If this can not be discussed here please delete this and let me know where i can move this topic. 

[James 6]

You are very welcome to post here. Forum guidelines are here but basically are just about being polite to one another.

For video/files etc I recommend hosting off-site with YouTube/DropBox etc and linking to them so that your copy stays safe.

Looking forward to hearing more about your concept.

[2muchcoffee 3]

Hey James, this cipher is suddenly making me very nervous. I've studied ciphers for over 40 years. I see no way to decrypt it without the key. How do you handle the idea that someone someday will post a cipher that is solid, unbreakable, and they have just placed it in the publics hands. I'll post it, I'm not looking for drama just nervous. 

[James 6]

Why not submit it for a competition or for peer review first?

https://competitions.cr.yp.to/

[2muchcoffee 3]

Thank you,

Decided to post this as a competition. I know it will never be succesfully attacked. I will be posting the details soon.

In the mean time here is a fun encryption puzzle I made years ago using excell.

You can find it here. It is free.

scroll down to the bottom of the page:  http://hishouseinc.com/inventions.php

[2muchcoffee 3]

This could easily be made into an impossible to decrypt cipher. Where one key of x and y organize the row into a single letter in the row randomly located and read that make up the plain text (modified book cipher)....this is more dangerous than i thought. 

Edited June 19, 2019 by 2muchcoffee

[GirkovArpa 2]

This is threshold encryption.  You say it's different but don't specify how.  Threshold encryption is a very much studied field. 

[James 6]

NIST has a section for Threshold Encryption and says it has areas of relevant related research including secure multi-party computation, intrusion tolerant distributed systems, and threshold circuit design... https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Threshold-Cryptography

[2muchcoffee 3]

I would be be glad to disclose this, the reserve i have is i am not a programmer nor a fellow in the field that anyone should take notice. This has been in an armchair format for years. However it is one of the most flexible, scalable ciphers i have ever seen.

By flexible i imply the cipher can show differences in normal distribution of different random generator (prng, and rng) engines like a fingerprint. Single or multiple Keys. The key can be any any length alpha, numeric or symbol. It can show frequency of random distributions of rocks in a stream to show natural or man made positioning. A secure method of encryption. The cipher text charecters have no traceable meaning without the key, meaning that you may have 5 g's but each one could represent any character. By scalable i mean any size of documentation.

Would be glad to work through each example but for reasons above......it would go with out being noticed.

[JJH 0]

Decided to post this simply because it has relevance past what I am able to code... I know Schneier said "Anyone, from the most clueless amateur to the best cryptographer, can create an algorithm that he himself can't break." I have studied cryptography, encryption methods and cryptanalysis for over 20 years. This is past me and has many one time pad similarities, but very very different. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Here is the link to see how to code and decode a positional cipher. I thought of this many years ago and thought I would post it to see what you think. To me it is little more than a toy but it might be of more interest to others here. I have tried to launch attacks against it and do not see how anyone could break this. I know I am not the smartest apple in the cart and so it probably would be simple to break by others with more knowledge than I have. I call it a 10-8 cipher. Below is a small test.

Hints about the key:
To avoid frequency, attack the key has duplicate most common used letters to confuse the actual position used.
It is alpha numeric.
There are no red herrings or tricks. misspelled words, shifts or skips.
I did include letter pairs and number pairs and maybe some triples.
 
Hints about the plain text:
It is a fake NOC list (Non-Official Cover) of the 3 top spies from the country of Taured.
It includes their first and last name, Age, Phone number.
The plain text is separated by commas.
 
Hints about the cipher text:
Be careful the numbers are the position of the letters and do not represent letters in the plain text, In the next puzzle I will use combination of single letters, letter or number pairs, letter or number triples.
Watch the video and you will see how how a letter or number in the cipher text could represent any number, any letter, or any pair or triple (this is why I said I cannot come up with a way to attack this).
The 3 ciphers each use different keys….
Questions, just post them below.
Have fun
FIRST CIPHER
45-36-3-9-27-8-20-22-3-38-17-26-10-46-35-25-18-8-37-37-59-58-60-2-60-20
 
SECOND CIPHER
18-25-12-49-35-8-23-43-18-54-33-13-60-3-34-2-20-13-43-41-20-13-4-4-60-32-35-35-15-63-59
 
THIRD CIPHER
15-45-34-50-8-19-64-33-10-14-20-15-24-30-45-27-6-3-4-63-62-34-12-64-28-63-11-23-59

If you really are brave. I will call this unbreakable because it uses letter doubles and triples mixed in with the full alpha-numeric with repeats.

Hint:

1. The 52 cipher text phrase below, has 68 character including spaces in the original plain text.

69-46-24-34-55-32-15-58-9-12-47-64-64-31-30-7-80-60-10-9-48-78-48-2-79-14-95-32-48-95-84-97-87-75-93-46-75-87-87-42-89-99-69-54-91-87-66-50-17-13-73-23-

Something unique is that using this positional cipher you can also reveal sequences in a number strings easily, and reveal higher or lower entropy to compare what number streams are different in randomness.

For instance let's say you were given the problem of finding missing or out of place sequences for a steganography problem or simply hiding information in a stream.  In this example of numbers 5-3-2-3-1-1-2-5-2-4-2-5-1-5-3, ( which by first glance could be a random stream) that are taken from a set of numbers 1-2-3-4-5, one number is out of place. What process is currently used to detect which number is out of place (there currently is not one method to detect missing or out of place sequences). This would almost be a puzzle of its own unless you use this positional cipher in which case it stands out obviously.

The answer to the above when you run the set of numbers ( 5-3-2-3-1-1-2-5-2-4-2-5-1-5-3) through the positional cipher with the key being 1-2-3-4-5 you get. (5-3-2-4-1-5-3-2-4-1-4-3-2-4-1) from this it is obvious that the position combination that repeats is 5-3-2-4-1 the number that is obviously out of position is the 11th number 4 an interesting point is that you can see from this sequence that the odds of this happening is 5^15 or 1 in 30517578125. Now the question after this little game is. Is checking the position of numbers through this cipher a way to determine the randomness of a stream of numbers?

To see a video on how i came up with the answer of 5-3-2-4-1 series above click here to see the video.

[JJH 0]

Below is a sample key using letters. It could just as easily use ascii or bits or bytes. You will notice that it has several words called " paces" the obvious question is how do you know which one to use. The truth is it does not matter and to avoid human random error sequences that might allow this to be frequency attacked you could make decicions by the flip of a coin. In a frequency attack such as you would use with a one time pad. Vigeners cipher you could include letter double, triples, and even whole words, nibbles, bits, bytes, etc.

m
5
a
v
er
o
a
b
space
tt
c
1
8
space
j
y
g
t
f
er
n
p
t
s
3
e
th
u
space
o
on
9
w
space
space
l
h
o
space
k
th
ee
t
0
r
a
e
6
.
i
ss
q
space
7
4
x
z
on
2
e
,
d
ff
space