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  3. [Survey] What is the most secure crypto algorithm?

[Survey] What is the most secure crypto algorithm?

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  • J John Aldrich

    I'm reading thru O'Rielly's "Perl in a Nutshell" book at the moment, and happened to run accross the page detailing the various functions of Perl operators. That started me thinking about their use in encryption/decryption and sparked the curiousity in my mind about what the most secure / strongest ( I'm using these terms interchangibly ) in existance is today? My answer to this question would have to rest with One Time Pad Encryption because of the fact that it can utilize a pad of length symmetrical to the data to be encrypted and the data cannot be decrypted without the original pad text. My question to you guys is, what is your personal belief as far as what the strongest / most secure algorithm is. Some of you may think that RC6 / DES / IDEA may be stronger than OTP. I'm interested in your responses. Let's get some good, clean debate going here


    It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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    l a u r e n
    wrote on last edited by
    #5

    OTP with a true random pad generated from a white noise source is unbreakable ... the rest are "deemed" unbreakable


    "even if my world is weird its my world"
    biz stuff   about me

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    • L l a u r e n

      OTP with a true random pad generated from a white noise source is unbreakable ... the rest are "deemed" unbreakable


      "even if my world is weird its my world"
      biz stuff   about me

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      John Aldrich
      wrote on last edited by
      #6

      I'm assuming by "white noise source" that you mean generating a true random string, then passing it thru another encryption algorithm such as RC6 / Blowfish or something to that effect, THEN using that as the pad by which to encrypt the message? One possibility I was thinking of for key generation, was creating an algorithm to break up the message to be encrypted into blocks of equal size, or near equal size, write those out to temp files, and then CRC them. Since each file would generate a unique CRC with a MINIMAL chance of a spurious hit ( getting the same CRC ) the message could be excrypted using it's own text to create a pad. Thoughts?


      It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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      • C ColinDavies

        I'd like to hear an argument that another form could be stronger than OTP. Other methods have advantages over OTP like portability and verifiability but in sheer strength OTP is it. Regardz Colin J Davies

        Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin

        I'm guessing the concept of a 2 hour movie showing two guys eating a meal and talking struck them as 'foreign' Rob Manderson wrote:

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        John Aldrich
        wrote on last edited by
        #7

        Probably getting into Mmltary grade encryption arena with that. I'd image that there are things stronger than OTP, although I couldn't tell you what they are really. :~ OTP to my knowledge is the strongest public domain algo in use, though anything that can oust it is more than welcome by my standards


        It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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        • C Chris Losinger

          OTP is perfectly secure1. but, the problems are: * you can only use the key/pad once * the key/pad must be as large as the data * the key must be random * synchronization and distribution of the key can be difficult 1 - Applied Cryptography, Page 15 -c


          Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. --Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

          Fractals

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          John Aldrich
          wrote on last edited by
          #8

          Chris, I think key scheduling can solve the syncronization and distribution aspects of it. a predefined set of keys can be created ahead of time with the keys all being the maximum possible length of a message. This could be steganized into a dummy file, like a jpg or some such then posted on a public website. In reality, no one, but the recipient of the messages would know what file the keys were contained in. To anyone else, it would just appear as a bloated jpg. keys could simply be discarded after a single use and the next key in the sequence used to decrypt the next message.


          It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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          • J John Aldrich

            I'm assuming by "white noise source" that you mean generating a true random string, then passing it thru another encryption algorithm such as RC6 / Blowfish or something to that effect, THEN using that as the pad by which to encrypt the message? One possibility I was thinking of for key generation, was creating an algorithm to break up the message to be encrypted into blocks of equal size, or near equal size, write those out to temp files, and then CRC them. Since each file would generate a unique CRC with a MINIMAL chance of a spurious hit ( getting the same CRC ) the message could be excrypted using it's own text to create a pad. Thoughts?


            It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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            l a u r e n
            wrote on last edited by
            #9

            no just a block of pure random noise as long as the text as a otp the fact that the noise is unreproducable and unguessable is the key u need a new block every time u encrypt a message of course and the recipient has to have the noise block as well


            "even if my world is weird its my world"
            biz stuff   about me

            J 1 Reply Last reply
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            • D David Stone

              I've got my money on PGP. As long as you don't give out your private key...you're fine.


              Hey, what can I say? I'm a chick magnet...a babe conductor...a logarithm for the ladies. -Strong Bad from HomeStarRunner.com Essential Tips for Web Developers

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              John Aldrich
              wrote on last edited by
              #10

              PGP can be brute forced a little two easily for my tastes, since the pure and simple fact is that they key length isn't symettric to the length of the unencoded message in most cases, it would simply be a matter of finding patterns in the encoded text. Once you match up a word in the encoded text, there goes your security.
              It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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              • L l a u r e n

                no just a block of pure random noise as long as the text as a otp the fact that the noise is unreproducable and unguessable is the key u need a new block every time u encrypt a message of course and the recipient has to have the noise block as well


                "even if my world is weird its my world"
                biz stuff   about me

                J Offline
                J Offline
                John Aldrich
                wrote on last edited by
                #11

                Hmm, that brings us to how to issue that we get a true block of pure random white noise. No random generation system is perfect. Often, they rely on the output of some external program which is used to seed the rand() call. It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                • J John Aldrich

                  Chris, I think key scheduling can solve the syncronization and distribution aspects of it. a predefined set of keys can be created ahead of time with the keys all being the maximum possible length of a message. This could be steganized into a dummy file, like a jpg or some such then posted on a public website. In reality, no one, but the recipient of the messages would know what file the keys were contained in. To anyone else, it would just appear as a bloated jpg. keys could simply be discarded after a single use and the next key in the sequence used to decrypt the next message.


                  It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                  Marc Richarme
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #12

                  John Aldrich wrote: could be steganized into a dummy file, like a jpg or some such then posted on a public website. :omg: That's not really security! You might as well put your plaintext message in the jpg file!

                  Cheers,
                  Marc

                  :beer: Click to see my *real* signature :beer:

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                  • M Marc Richarme

                    John Aldrich wrote: could be steganized into a dummy file, like a jpg or some such then posted on a public website. :omg: That's not really security! You might as well put your plaintext message in the jpg file!

                    Cheers,
                    Marc

                    :beer: Click to see my *real* signature :beer:

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                    Chris Losinger
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #13

                    ya beat me to it! :)


                    Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. --Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

                    Fractals

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                    • J John Aldrich

                      Hmm, that brings us to how to issue that we get a true block of pure random white noise. No random generation system is perfect. Often, they rely on the output of some external program which is used to seed the rand() call. It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                      Marc Richarme
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #14

                      John Aldrich wrote: No random generation system is perfect. Correction: No purely software generated "random" sequence exists... but nature will do the job: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/[^]

                      Cheers,
                      Marc

                      :beer: Click to see my *real* signature :beer:

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                      • J John Aldrich

                        Hmm, that brings us to how to issue that we get a true block of pure random white noise. No random generation system is perfect. Often, they rely on the output of some external program which is used to seed the rand() call. It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                        ColinDavies
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #15

                        John, 100% Random doesn' exist as we all know, but effective 100% does. Forget the rand seed() methods. Lets say we record 1 Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin

                        I'm guessing the concept of a 2 hour movie showing two guys eating a meal and talking struck them as 'foreign' Rob Manderson wrote:

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                        • C Chris Losinger

                          ya beat me to it! :)


                          Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. --Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

                          Fractals

                          J Offline
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                          John Aldrich
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #16

                          Hmm, interesting point, and I'll rebuttal that by saying that sending out a plaintext messaged in steganized file basicly renders the message completely insecure because of the fact that the spy need only to de-steganize the file, that's even taking into account that they knew what they were looking for. By steganizing the keys into another file, the potential spy is now forced to gather both the message and the keys, making more work for him, and more of a chance that he'll simply loose interest. The idea is to make the task so daunting for him. It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                          • J John Aldrich

                            Hmm, interesting point, and I'll rebuttal that by saying that sending out a plaintext messaged in steganized file basicly renders the message completely insecure because of the fact that the spy need only to de-steganize the file, that's even taking into account that they knew what they were looking for. By steganizing the keys into another file, the potential spy is now forced to gather both the message and the keys, making more work for him, and more of a chance that he'll simply loose interest. The idea is to make the task so daunting for him. It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                            Marc Richarme
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #17

                            The whole point is that even if an attacker knows exactly how the "system" works (how keys are exchanged, what communication channels are used) and he interceps the encrypted message, he will not be able to retrieve the original content of the message. This makes it possible to transfer sensitive data over unsecure mediums (like the internet, radio communication, phone lines, etc) where the encrypted message can easily be intercepted.

                            Cheers,
                            Marc

                            :beer: Click to see my *real* signature :beer:

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                            • J John Aldrich

                              I'm reading thru O'Rielly's "Perl in a Nutshell" book at the moment, and happened to run accross the page detailing the various functions of Perl operators. That started me thinking about their use in encryption/decryption and sparked the curiousity in my mind about what the most secure / strongest ( I'm using these terms interchangibly ) in existance is today? My answer to this question would have to rest with One Time Pad Encryption because of the fact that it can utilize a pad of length symmetrical to the data to be encrypted and the data cannot be decrypted without the original pad text. My question to you guys is, what is your personal belief as far as what the strongest / most secure algorithm is. Some of you may think that RC6 / DES / IDEA may be stronger than OTP. I'm interested in your responses. Let's get some good, clean debate going here


                              It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                              Daniel Turini
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #18

                              The best Encryption algorithm is mine! I invented it, it's fully coded in VB6 and it's so big, slow and complicated that it can't be wrong! If you don't believe me, try to decrypt this message: adsfklnadJKLHAQOEIRUhjlkasre098745qowek\;zx.,c\xclakjdf908a723rknjmazdfc0987qwekmnc\szdx Did you all see how safe it is? Come on, people. Any encryption or compression post MUST have a reply like this :-O I see dumb people

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                              • D David Stone

                                I've got my money on PGP. As long as you don't give out your private key...you're fine.


                                Hey, what can I say? I'm a chick magnet...a babe conductor...a logarithm for the ladies. -Strong Bad from HomeStarRunner.com Essential Tips for Web Developers

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                                markkuk
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #19

                                PGP isn't an algorithm, it's essentially a message format and software implementing that format. There are several different algorithms that can be used with PGP message format.

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                                • J John Aldrich

                                  I'm reading thru O'Rielly's "Perl in a Nutshell" book at the moment, and happened to run accross the page detailing the various functions of Perl operators. That started me thinking about their use in encryption/decryption and sparked the curiousity in my mind about what the most secure / strongest ( I'm using these terms interchangibly ) in existance is today? My answer to this question would have to rest with One Time Pad Encryption because of the fact that it can utilize a pad of length symmetrical to the data to be encrypted and the data cannot be decrypted without the original pad text. My question to you guys is, what is your personal belief as far as what the strongest / most secure algorithm is. Some of you may think that RC6 / DES / IDEA may be stronger than OTP. I'm interested in your responses. Let's get some good, clean debate going here


                                  It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                                  Erik Funkenbusch
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #20

                                  Security really encompases several aspects. You can have the most secure system in the world (OTP) but if it becomes difficult to disseminate the key in a secure way, it's insecure. Someone mentioned placing the key in a jpg and posting it on the internet. This is a false sense of security and relies on security through obscurity (ie, if someone in your organization leaks the method of conveyance, you're screwed and you have to find a new method of conveyance. compared to public key encryption where you can simply change the key). Public key encryption allows you to make the public key public to anyone, but without the private key, it's useless. Thus, I can encrypt a message to you using your public key, but only you can decrypt it using your private key. Conversely, you can encrypt a message with a private key and decrypt it with the public key to verify it's source if the data is not sensitive, but you want to make sure it's credible. Public key encryption can be brute forced, and is susceptible to certain kinds of attacks (such as the random number generator used), but then so is something like a OTP. It's difficult to come up with a truly random source. I dislike using the term "unbreakable", because it's used way too often to mean "nearly unbreakable" or "infeasible to break". Even a one time pad is breakable, since it's possible (just astronomically unlikely) to guess the pad. Of course you can just guess the message as well with equal likelihood, which makes a OTP "effectively unbreakable". Most public key mechanisms are based on factoring prime numbers or something similar, which means that if new math, or a new kind of hardware is developed to make this task easier, your security disappears quite quickly. In my opinion, you might as well come up with your own unique algorithm over using a OTP, unless you have an extrmely secure way to deliver pads, which case you might as well just deliver the message unencrypted. A unique algoithm can also be effectively unbreakable, especially if combined with other unique algorithms. The key to making a unqiue algorithm difficult is to never use a repeating cipher, or one with a predictable pattern. Dictionary look ups are often good for this (the dictionary need not be an actual dictionary, but something like a newspaper or phone book) While this may seem, on the surface to have the same problem as issuing a pad through a public means, such as the aforementioned jpg on the internet, it has the advantage that the algorithm is not known, s

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                                  • M Marc Richarme

                                    The whole point is that even if an attacker knows exactly how the "system" works (how keys are exchanged, what communication channels are used) and he interceps the encrypted message, he will not be able to retrieve the original content of the message. This makes it possible to transfer sensitive data over unsecure mediums (like the internet, radio communication, phone lines, etc) where the encrypted message can easily be intercepted.

                                    Cheers,
                                    Marc

                                    :beer: Click to see my *real* signature :beer:

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                                    John Aldrich
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #21

                                    Marc: Right. Steganizing just the plaintext message into another file, makes the system essentially worthless, because all the information he needed would be right there. I think for key sync that it's a fair option because like you said, it allows sensative data to be transfered over insecure mediums. Hell, government does it all the time. :suss: It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                                    • M markkuk

                                      PGP isn't an algorithm, it's essentially a message format and software implementing that format. There are several different algorithms that can be used with PGP message format.

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                                      John Aldrich
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #22

                                      I wasn't refering to it as an algorithm, and if I mislead you to believe that I was, I apologize. I'm simply refering to the inherant lack of security in keys generated by PGP. What I'm saying is that PGP key length usually isn't symmetrical to the length of the messsage to be encrypted. Let's say for example, you have a 2048 byte message. Now let's say you have a 56 byte key. That key repeats 36.5714285714285714285714285714286 times over the course of the encrypted output from PGP. In essence to brute force crack the message, you only need to crack the key in 14 consecutive character increment in the encoded message which is 1/4 of the key. It's an easy task to figure out where to offset to decode other parts of the message since the key length is fixed which is moreover an easy job for a brute force cracker ( these things can be written in 15 minutes ). Assuming the message is in english, the first set of characters could be a word which could be run against a dictionary of common english words. assuming you get matches, the rest of the message can be extrapolated fairly easily, before needing to crack the rest of it.
                                      It's good to see kids turning their minds to wholesum activities such as programming, instead of wasting their lives in the hedonistic disciplines of Sex, Drugs, & Rock & Roll... or Sex with Drugs, or Sex with Rocks while Rolling in Drugs, or whatever new-fangled perversions you little monsters have thought up now... [Shog9 on Kid Programmers]

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                                      • D Daniel Turini

                                        The best Encryption algorithm is mine! I invented it, it's fully coded in VB6 and it's so big, slow and complicated that it can't be wrong! If you don't believe me, try to decrypt this message: adsfklnadJKLHAQOEIRUhjlkasre098745qowek\;zx.,c\xclakjdf908a723rknjmazdfc0987qwekmnc\szdx Did you all see how safe it is? Come on, people. Any encryption or compression post MUST have a reply like this :-O I see dumb people

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                                        Anonymous
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #23

                                        Daniel Turini wrote: adsfklnadJKLHAQOEIRUhjlkasre098745qowek\;zx.,c\xclakjdf908a723rknjmazdfc0987qwekmnc\szdx Does it say "Hello World!"? ;P

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                                        • A Anonymous

                                          Daniel Turini wrote: adsfklnadJKLHAQOEIRUhjlkasre098745qowek\;zx.,c\xclakjdf908a723rknjmazdfc0987qwekmnc\szdx Does it say "Hello World!"? ;P

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                                          Marc Richarme
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #24

                                          That was my post... wonder how 'Anonymous' got in there :suss:

                                          Cheers,
                                          Marc

                                          :beer: Click to see my *real* signature :beer:

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