Need info on Encyption book

Hi all,

I have joined the "Small Computer Book Club" and in their "Top 10 Best
Sellers" is a book by Gilbert Held called _Top_Secret_ - Data Encryption 
Techniques.  Below is the text description:

"Learn how to get people the information they need...without prying
eyes getting a look at it, too. This book/disk package introduces
you to techniques you can use to secure messages transmitted over internal
company networks or public electronic message systems.  You'll learn how to
protect your communications with techiques for transposing characters in
text, replacing characters, with new ones, using arrays, and more.  Plus,
your free disk features source code for the book's enciphering programs.
Softcover, with 3.5" disk. 218pp 1993."

Has anyone heard of this book and is it with the $19.95 that they want
for it?

Thanks

Kent Perrier
keperrier@setpoint.com (work)
kperrier@neosoft.com (play)
Corporations don't have opinions, people do.  These are mine.
PGP 2.3a Public Key available by request

> You'll learn how to protect your communications with
> techiques for transposing characters in text, replacing
> characters, with new ones, using arrays, and more.

Haha... sounds more like "How to encrypt messages so that prying eyes
can read them too."

Character substitution?  You'll need to do a lot better than that to
beat cryptanalysis.  A simple character substitution array wouldn't fool
most people on this list if they took a serious crack at it.

KEPERRIER@setpoint.com (Kent Perrier) writes:

> Hi all,
> 
> I have joined the "Small Computer Book Club" and in their "Top 10 Best
> Sellers" is a book by Gilbert Held called _Top_Secret_ - Data Encryption 
> Techniques.  Below is the text description:
> 
> "Learn how to get people the information they need...without prying
> eyes getting a look at it, too. This book/disk package introduces
> you to techniques you can use to secure messages transmitted over internal
> company networks or public electronic message systems.  You'll learn how to
> protect your communications with techiques for transposing characters in
> text, replacing characters, with new ones, using arrays, and more.  Plus,
> your free disk features source code for the book's enciphering programs.
> Softcover, with 3.5" disk. 218pp 1993."
> 
> Has anyone heard of this book and is it with the $19.95 that they want
> for it?

If this is the one I'm thinking of, with source in basic, the algorithms 
used are mostly primitive things that have been cracked a long time ago.  
while it may be useful as a text for someone who isn't at all familiar 
with cryptography to start with, don't be fooled by claims that simple 
xor is a strong encryption algorithm.  I dont think the book covers any 
serious encryption algorithms (des, idea, public key crypto, etc) but the 
most memorable thing about it was that it was funny that they believed 
what they were saying, so my memory may be faulty.

--
Mike Sherwood
internet: mike@EGFABT.ORG     uucp: ...!sgiblab!egfabt!mike