CompuServe Messages

Don, No, I don't mean DES, as you correctly stated it is THE encryption method approved by the DSA. RSA is another type of encryption technique (I believe the initials stand for the three mathematicians that have patented the algorithm). It has the feature of a "private" and "public" key, which not only encodes it to specific people without knowing the de-coding key themselves, but you can encrypt it with your "private" key, which proves you sent it, because it de-codes using your public key. It hinges on the assumption that it would be VERY difficult to compute two 100 digit prime numbers from their products. RSA is a very powerful technique that has not yet been proved to be "breakable". Some more paranoid people believe that the DSA give their approval to DES, because owners of Cray supercomputers (such as themselves) have a chance to de-code DES messages. I don't know if this is true. I wish the guys selling the program (LuCypher II) had a less statispheric price expectations. I would love to play around with something like that, but at $199 its way out of my price range for curiousity pieces! -RSL- P.S. I hope my "run on" sentences haven't confused my meaning!