Cloudflare CTO cracks password to ZIP file with Tim Jenkin's crypto source code for Operation Vula

[Jan]

Secret crypto code that helped end apartheid cracked, open-sourced

Cloudflare chief technology officer John Graham-Cumming has cracked a 33-year-old password that protected the source code to a secure communications system used by the ANC during Operation Vula.

This has finally allowed the system's designer and programmer, Tim Jenkin, to open source the code he developed in the 1980s that had helped ANC leaders negotiate a peaceful end to apartheid.

 

[Enzo Matrix]

Go home Jan

You are drunk

 

[FiestaST]

You should have led with this article in the morning instead of the DSTV v Netflix mumbo jumbo. Lightyears better.

My 2c of course.

 

[Bliksis]

Mildly interesting, but I'd rather wait for more comments before being lured in to click the link.

 

[Alexander the Straight]

Tim Jenkin looks younger today than he did back then. Must have also cracked the immortality code

 

[Johand]

Eh? As I read the article the One Time Pad was not cracked and just the crypto on the zip file that held the software? Super misleading headline (on article - on forum it is clear).

 

[Supervan II]

From the article:

Mandela had been transferred from prison to house arrest as part of negotiations to transition to a democratic South Africa.

However, the apartheid government kept Mandela isolated from the rest of the ANC in the hopes of securing more favourable terms by creating the impression they were negotiating solely with him.

While it was not possible to smuggle a computer and disks to Mandela, messages were relayed in the covers of books.

Mandela’s replies could then be smuggled out, encrypted using the software, and transmitted to Tambo in Lusaka.

“Messages from Mandela became a regular feature and in response there were long memos from Oliver Tambo in Lusaka,” said Jenkin.

From his Wiki page:

Victor Verster Prison and release: 1988–1990​

"Free Mandela" protest in East Berlin, 1986
Recovering from tuberculosis exacerbated by the damp conditions in his cell,[192] Mandela was moved to Victor Verster Prison, near Paarl, in December 1988. He was housed in the relative comfort of a warder's house with a personal cook, and he used the time to complete his LLB degree.[193] While there, he was permitted many visitors and organised secret communications with exiled ANC leader Oliver Tambo.[194][195]

Proof that Mandela was complicit in the shootings, bombings and necklacing of innocent civilians that was going on at the time ...

 

[Gordon_R]

IMO this was Walter Mitty level stuff:

Jenkin and co-conspirator Stephen Lee were arrested after being caught moving their equipment for manufacturing pamphlet bombs with anti-apartheid messaging, which they had set off around Cape Town between 1975 and 1978.

 

[Bliksis]

Eh? As I read the article the One Time Pad was not cracked and just the crypto on the zip file that held the software? Super misleading headline (on article - on forum it is clear).

Haha yep. Well done Jan.

 

[Unreal]

Tim Jenkin looks younger today than he did back then. Must have also cracked the immortality code

He’s giving Morgan Freeman vibes

 

[Unreal]

From the article:


From his Wiki page:


Proof that Mandela was complicit in the shootings, bombings and necklacing of innocent civilians that was going on at the time ...

Not sure what you are on about here man

 

[gregmcc]

Cracking it was no easy feat

bkcrack ran for 23 minutes to return with a decryption key.

Better not try crack anything else if you think that was difficult.

 

[Jan]

Better not try crack anything else if you think that was difficult.

How long bkcrack ran was not what made it hard. It was just the cherry on the cake.

Thinking about the best approach to predicting the plain text is the challenge.

 

[Zarathustra]

The cANCer is probably still using that computer

 

[s0lar]

Great article.

 

[Thorium]

Excellent article Jan, we need more like it.

 

[rubber_otter]

A simple brute force might have taken less than 33 years.