Talk:Solitaire (cipher)

Untitled

I'd like to add a lot more to this page, including a Wikicode version, but I'm not sure about the copyright issues. There are several implementations available from Bruce's web page, and most of the are licensed using the GPL. I've also personally ported the C version to PHP and submitted it back to Bruce, but I never got a response back from him and it's never been added to that page.

Can I just go ahead and create the Wikicode and put it in the article?

--Jachim69 06:08, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Good work on starting this page, and please do add more, if you get the chance. I'm not a lawyer, but (as I understand it), as long as your Wikicode isn't a "derived work" of some GPL code, then it should be OK. I would think that if you understand how the algorithm works, and are simply describing it in pseudocode, there shouldn't be any problem. — Matt Crypto 00:08, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Bruce has sort-of lost interest in Solitaire because of the bias in the output. The best known hand cipher is currently RC4-52.

Also I personally can't see the point of Wikicode when Python is equally readable but has an interpreter, but it's up to you. — ciphergoth 08:17, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)

What about discarding every second letter? This get rid of the "consecutive identical letters" bias. Of course it make the process twice slower, there may be better ways. Are there other bias ? - 12:10, August 21, 2005 140.77.13.62

I don't think this proposal would lead to a strong or efficient hand cipher. The lessons of Memo to the Amateur Cipher Designer apply to one applying "tweaks" to an existing cipher as much as to one designing a new cipher from scratch. — ciphergoth 15:16, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

Unless I'm misinterpreting the problem, discarding alternate letters would only halve the bias.

No, it would have a stronger effect than that, something more like the square but I don't have time to work it out just now — ciphergoth 06:20, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Regarding the reversibility problem, suppose one changed the first two steps to:

1. Move the A joker one card down. If the joker is the bottom card, move it to the top.
2. Move the B joker two cards down. If the joker is the bottom card, move it below the top card. If the joker is the second card from the bottom, move it to the top.

That is, basically treat the deck as having an invisible "dummy" card between the top and bottom, much like a dummy node is used in a circular doubly-linked list to eliminate special cases. Wouldn't this make the operation fully reversible? Or would it screw up the algorithm in other ways? — Xaonon (Talk) 03:50, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, apparently this was what Bruce meant to propose in the first place but he got it wrong. However, because of the bias he didn't pursue it; the bias is present in this modified version also. — ciphergoth 06:20, August 25, 2005 (UTC)

--bsjeep 09:50, Aug 17, 2006 (PST)

The 2 decks vs. 4 decks discussion in the main article is confusing, and after reading the detailed writeup on the Author's website, it appears that the example in the article is only using 1 deck. Can someone confirm and clarify the main article...

Solitaire seems closely related to RC4, in that there is a byte array being permuted and two pointers. I am unable to find a reference, though. John85 (talk) 01:18, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Problems?

I've just cut the following from the intro section:

Cryptanalysis by Paul Crowley in 1999 shows that the probability that two successive outputs from the cipher are the same, contrary to what one might expect based on intuition, is not 1 in 26, but closer to 1 in 22.5.

Why? Well It's one blogger saying something about Solitaire. What exactly the importance of this is is not made clear, and it links to a primary source (WP:PSTS). Further, the intro should reflect and summarize the body - yet this doesn't appear there. Snori (talk) 23:50, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

References

Sounds like the right decision to me. WP:BRD at work! --Guy Macon (talk) 23:54, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

Rethinking the above. See discussion below.

Good one, I'd never heard of that. Still, a little justifying note on my edit would have helped :-) Snori (talk) 09:15, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Hi, Paul Crowley here. For some reason the acknowledgement of my work has disappeared from the Solitaire page, but it was there in 2001.

I probably shouldn't, but I wanted to respond a little to "one blogger". It's probably worth pointing out that I have a few peer reviewed papers:

• Mercy (cipher) - published FSE 2000, now broken
• attack on LEVIATHAN (cipher) (with Stefan Lucks)
• attack on reduced-round Salsa20 winning djb's $1000 prize
• attack on Py (cipher)

I now lead storage encryption for Android; I helped bring in file based encryption and the Pixel 2 security module. Thanks! ciphergoth (talk) 20:34, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Probably also worth noting that mine is not the only relevant security analysis; Schneier lists two others here. ciphergoth (talk) 20:45, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Pinging @Guy Macon and Snori: I'd say that if the creator of the algorithm acknowledges the weakness, it's worth mentioning, whether it's published in a peer-reviewed journal or a YouTube comment. Your thoughts? Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 21:36, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

...Maybe not Youtube comments. See Wikipedia:Video links.

Despite my initial 2012 response above, looking at the ref more closely, in my opinion the archived counterpane.com source appears to meet our criteria for being a reliable source, and I believe that it should be included. Please discuss.

Re: the comment by Ciphergoth above, is there any evidence that the writer is Paul Crowley? As an example, when I established that Guy Macon is my legal name, I posted a note on guymacon.com to prove that I am the same Guy Macon who owns that web page. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:40, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

FWIW, Ciphergoth has made over 4000 edits and has been claiming to be Paul Crowley since at least 2006 and the real Paul hasn't shown up to say "Hey! Stop it already!" yet. Seems like a very strange ruse to maintain for 12 years, undetected. I'm willing to AGF. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 23:33, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

What's an easy way for me to add evidence here? My home page links to my Twitter, so if I verify this Wikipedia account on my Twitter account, might that suffice? Thanks! ciphergoth (talk) 23:40, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

Done (tweeted a random account so as not to bother those who follow me) ciphergoth (talk) 23:56, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

It's good enough for me, but as I said I was already convinced. You probably should link that from your userpage in case in comes up again. If anyone else has a problem, there is some fancy way to "officially" verify your identity to WP:OTRS but I'm not sure exactly how it works. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 00:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

No further evidence is needed. I just looked at the tweet and havce personally verified that the person who is Paul Crowley on twitter is the person who is Ciphergoth on Wikipedia. Link to this comment if anyone ever question this. (Twitter may go away some day but my Wikipedia edit history is on many hundreds of computers in many countries and cannot be modified. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:03, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Link is at [ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ASolitaire_%28cipher%29&type=revision&diff=850809089&oldid=850791279 ].