Don't be a fool: stay in school!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/19/mafia_don_clueless_crypto/

--> The recently busted Bernardo Provenzano, reputed to be the
--> "boss of bosses" of the Sicilian Mafia, used a modified form
--> of the Caesar cipher to obscure "sensitive information" in
--> notes left to either his family or underlings.
...
--> The code would have been more secure if the numerical shift
--> applied to the ciphertext was varied from time to time. As
--> it was, the contents of messages was readily deciphered.
--> "Looks like kindergarten cryptography to me. It will keep
--> your kid sister out, but it won't keep the police out. But
--> what do you expect from someone who is computer illiterate?"
--> security guru Bruce Schneier told Discovery News.
-->
--> Provenzano left school aged only eight, a factor which might
--> explain the simplistic nature of the way sensitive messages,
--> normally typed out on old typewriters, were encoded.
Received on Mon May 1 02:02:43 2006