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* * * * * * * *************** * *************** * * * * * * * * * * THE CONFIDANT (tm) * * TUTORIAL * * * * * * * * * * *************** * *************** * * * * * * * Copyright (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage Yale Station 2902 New Haven, CT 06520 CONTENTS The Confidant and the Secret Formula ........... T-1 What is There to Protect? ..................... T-1 Encryption Vs. Passwords ...................... T-2 What is Encryption? ........................... T-3 A Little Background ........................... T-3 Copying the Master Diskette ................... T-4 Using The Confidant ........................... T-7 Getting HELP .................................. T-7 The SOURCE .................................... T-9 The DESTINATION ............................... T-9 Choosing a PASSWORD ........................... T-10 Hiding the PASSWORD ........................... T-11 Starting Encryption ........................... T-11 Fixing Mistakes ............................... T-14 "Flipping" SOURCE and DESTINATION ............. T-15 Copying ....................................... T-15 Privacy ....................................... T-18 Directory and Erase SOURCE ...................... T-19 Using The Confidant to Transmit Data Over the Telephone .................................. T-19 Index to the Tutorial .......................... T-25 THE CONFIDANT AND THE SECRET FORMULA A Tutorial on How to Use The Confidant Anne Lambert pressed the intercom button on her desk. As Vice President of Finance for the small Icey Beverage Company, she faced more than the usual number of problems. The one that worried her now was the security of the data on her firm's new microcomputers. It was hardly a major problem, but she sensed that it had the potential for becoming one. And she knew better than to let it. "See if you can get David Lyons, the computer consultant, will you?" she said to her secretary over the intercom. What is There to Protect? While she waited for the call to go through, Anne considered what she wanted to protect and why. First, there were the payroll records. A curious employee might look at the records of others. If he spread word of what he found, the morale of other employees could suffer. Next, there were management reports, and projections produced by her office. If someone got hold of a prerelease copy of the firm's quarterly report, for instance, they could use that information to manipulate sales of the company's stock. And there were Icey's plans for a new soft drink marketing strategy. How valuable those would be to a competitor! And how easy to convince an employee to print off a copy from the computer after hours, or for someone to intercept a copy when it was being transmitted over the telephone to the Midwest office. She wasn't the only one concerned, either. Earlier today, Frank Vitale, the company's Director of Personnel, had mentioned he would like to keep a computerized record of the experimental alcoholism treatment program his office was offering to a small number of employees. But one of the enrollees had balked when he brought it up. "I don't want anyone else knowing I'm in the program," he told Frank. "If you put my name in the computer, someone will find out for sure." During the same discussion, Aaron Abrams, the marketing manager, mentioned a mailing list he was preparing as part of a compaign to increase the number of dealers selling the company's products. "I'd sure hate it if our competition got hold of this," he said. "They'd mess us up for sure." He was worried because a similar list was stolen at the company he worked for previously. Getting access to the microcomputers was very easy. Since the computers were located in different offices in the building, physical security was low. And some of the computers were connected by a local area network, so that a user of one computer could look at data on another computer without the user of the other computer even knowing. Encryption Vs. Passwords Anne's thoughts were cut short by the buzz of the intercom. "Mr. Lyons is on the line," said her secretary. "David," she said, when she picked up the telephone, "a salesman was here last week, trying to get us to buy a security system for our microcomputers. I'm afraid I wasn't too impressed with what he was offering, but the matter has been preying on my mind ever since." She briefly outlined the concerns she had just gone over in her head. "What didn't you like about what the salesman was offering you?" asked David, when she was finished. "He was selling a password protection system, you know, where every user has a password that he uses to get onto the system. But we already have that kind of protection with the local area network, and I thought you said it was not very secure." "That's right," answered the consultant. "The passwords are kept in a file on the disk. A clever employee or other user could find the password file with a little work, and could then use any account he wished. Passwords are useful. But they are seldom totally secure." "Maybe these computers aren't as useful as I thought they were going to be," said Anne. "An awfully lot of the information we want to use them for is sensitive." "I think I have a solution to the problem," answered David. "I suggest that you encrypt the data." [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-2] What Is Encryption? "Encrypt it? Isn't that what CIA agents and spies do -- change text into a secret code or something? "Yes, the same techniques can be used to protect confidential data on a computer," David explained. "All data in a computer are stored in special codes made up of numbers. The usual code for microcomputers is called ASCII, which stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. ASCII is a code that most programmers and computer designers and manufacturers know. When you encrypt data, you change the code. That way, no one knows it. The change in code is based on a password that is combined mathematically with the ASCII code to produce a new code." "That sounds complicated," replied Anne. "I need something simple to use or no one will do it." "It's actually quite straightforward," David assured her. "The computer does all the work, and it does it relatively fast. The only thing you do is supply the password." "Well, I am interested in knowing more," said Anne. "Will you be able to show me?" "Let's see," David said, scanning his appointment book. "I could come Friday morning, about nine a.m. It will take us about an hour." "Fine," agreed Anne. "I'll see you then." As she hung up the phone, she said aloud to herself, "Encryption. That certainly sounds intriguing." * * * A Little Background On Friday morning Anne Lambert met David Lyons promptly at nine a.m. in her office. Each inquired politely how the other was doing and then they got down to business. "I had my secretary pick up a couple of books and articles on encryption at the university library," said Anne, "and I've been reading something about it. I'm afraid I don't understand it all, but it has a fascinating history." David sifted through the pile of literature on her desk. There were titles like: [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-3] Codes, Ciphers, and Computers, by Bruce Bosworth, Hayden Publishing Co., 1982 "Privacy and Authentication: An Introduction to Cryptography," by Whitfield Diffie and Martin E. Hellman, from the Proceedings of the IEEE, 1979. The Codebreakers by David Kahn, Macmillan Co., 1967. Most were classics in the field of cryptology, or modern articles about it. The last one was a good non- technical introduction, but it was too old to cover computer cryptography very well. "For the most part, those are pretty technical," said David, who was thinking Anne's secretary had the rare aptitude of a good reference librarian. "It's no wonder they were difficult to follow. What did you learn?" "Well, that people have been using secret codes at least since the Egyptian pharoahs. Also, that some codes are easier to break than others. There are two coding systems that are used a lot today, the Data Encryption Standard and Public Key Encryption. They are considered fairly safe. There are also other good systems. Finally, I learned that encryption is not just for espionage. Government and business use it to protect privacy, and to ensure the security of financial and other operations." "All quite accurate," agreed David. "What do you think about trying it out?" "I'm willing," replied Anne. "At least I'd like to see it work." "I have a program here called The Confidant," said David, pulling a diskette and manual from his briefcase. "You can use it to encrypt your files, and then use it to decrypt them back to their original form." Copying the Master Diskette "The first thing we'll do," continued David, "is make a copy of the master diskette, for everyday use. That way, if something happens to the copy, we can always make another one. If we don't make a copy, but use the master, any damage to the master puts us out of commission. And damage can happen pretty easily, as someone who uses computers very much soon finds out." [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-4] "I think I've heard that before. What causes damage to diskettes?" asked Anne. "Getting dust or finger prints on the diskette, bending it, or setting a heavy object on top of it. Sometimes when you walk across a carpet, static electricity will zap it. Cigarette smoke getting on the diskette is another danger. There are lots of ways to destroy one." "I know how to make a copy," said Anne. "First, you take your DOS diskette and place it in drive A." She opened the door of the drive and inserted the diskette that contained the computer's operating system software. "Then I place a new diskette in drive B." David handed her a brand new diskette from a box on her desk. She slid it into the right-hand drive, then closed both drive doors. She typed FORMAT B:/S <RETURN> and watched while the computer formatted the new diskette and wrote a copy of the system software on it. At last the message Format Another (Y/N)? appeared on the screen. She pressed <N> to indicate she was finished. She took the DOS diskette out of drive A, and placed it in its sheath. "Now I need the master diskette for The Confidant," she said, taking it from David. She inserted it in the A drive and closed the door. She typed: COPY A:*.* B: <RETURN> The screen showed the message confide.exe confide.hlp confide.cry confide.inv refcard.doc tutorial.doc descript.doc refer.doc type.me 9 file(s) copied When the copying process finished she removed both diskettes and put them in their envelopes. [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-5] Meanwhile David had written a label saying: The Confidant (tm) Copyright 1983, 1984 by Data Sage Copy which he gave to Anne. She affixed it to the diskette and also placed a silver write-protect tab over the write-protect notch of the diskette. "There," she smiled, placing the copy in the A drive. "Now I'm curious to see how it works." ------------------------------------------------------------ DOING IT Take time to make a copy of The Confidant on a formatted diskette, if you haven't already done so. Be sure to place the original copy in a safe place. ------------------------------------------------------------ [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-6] Using The Confidant "Type CONFIDE and press the <RETURN> key," prompted David. In response to Anne Lambert's command the screen of the computer cleared and a "shareware" notice appeared. As she read the notice, David commented, "The company that wrote The Confidant distributes it freely and asks anyone who uses it to contribute ten dollars towards its support." "That certainly sounds fair," said Anne. "I'll see to it that we send the money right away." She pressed the space bar and a form appeared. David pointed to the screen. "The boxes on the right are for telling the computer what you want to encrypt or decrypt -- 'crypt' for short -- as well as what you want to do with the text once it has been processed. There is also a box for your PASSWORD, which you make up. As I mentioned before, the computer combines the password with your text to create a secret code." "What are these numbers at the bottom of the screen?" asked Anne. "I suppose they refer to the function keys on the keyboard." David nodded. Getting HELP Anne smiled a little self-consciously. "If at first you don't know what to do, read the instructions," she said. "It looks like pressing the <F9> key will give me some help." She pressed the <F9> key. Another form appeared on the screen. This time, it was a list of topics for which help was available. One by one, Anne pressed the function keys that gave access to the topics, so that after about five minutes she had read them all. "That's a lot of stuff to keep in my head after just one reading," she said. "But let's see if I understand what I should do next." She pressed the <F10> key that took her back to the main form. The box meant for information about the SOURCE of the text was highlighted, and the cursor rested in the box. "I guess I tell it where the text [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-7] is I want to encrypt," she said after studying the screen for a moment. ------------------------------------------------------------ DOING IT Load The Confidant into your computer and start it up by typing CONFIDE <RETURN>. Then read through the HELP files by pressing the <F9> key. ------------------------------------------------------------ [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-8] The SOURCE "Yes. The first thing you must decide," said David, "is what text you are going to process. The Confidant can encrypt text, decrypt it, and even just copy it from one file to another without making any changes in it. You must tell it where to get the text from and where you want it to go to. The SOURCE box is the from part." "I can either type the text in from the keyboard, meaning the 'CONSOLE' as it says here, or else use text that already exists in a file," said Anne. "Exactly," said David. "Why don't you start by entering from the keyboard. That will give you a better 'feel' for the way the program works. Since the program selects the CONSOLE by default, you just have to press the <RETURN> key to move to the DESTINATION field." The DESTINATION When Anne pressed the key, the SOURCE box turned dark and the DESTINATION box lit up. "I assume the same idea holds for the DESTINATION," said Anne. "Yes," said David. "Except that you have more options. You can send the text to a parallel or serial printer as well as to a file or the console." "It doesn't make sense to print encrypted text on the printer," said Anne. "Who is going to read it?" "Exactly," replied David. "The printer is usually chosen as DESTINATION only when you are decrypting text." "I'd like to try the program out a little," said Anne. "If I let the DESTINATION be the CONSOLE too, will I be able to see what I am encrypting?" "Yes," replied David. "Ordinarily, you would want to save encrypted text in a disk file so you can get it back again later. Most often you use the console as the destination when you want to look at decrypted text on the screen. But while you're getting used to The Confidant it would be a good idea to see what encrypted text looks like. An easy way to do that is by choosing the CONSOLE as the DESTINATION." Anne pressed the <RETURN> key, and the computer highlighted the PASSWORD box. "You said the password [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-9] is what makes the data secure," said Anne. "But you also said that password protection systems are usually not secure, at least on microcomputers. I'm a little confused." "What we normally mean when we say 'password security system' is that a user must enter a password before he or she can use the computer, or a certain file on the computer. The data in the file are not changed. The problem is, a list of passwords must be kept by the computer, and very often that list is open to inspection by skilled programmers. Even if someone can't read the password list he can often get around the software that is responsible for security. But encryption changes the data in the file, so that even if someone can look at the file he won't understand what is in it." Choosing a PASSWORD "How do I decide what password to use?" asked Anne. "You have to make it up," said David. "But some passwords are better than others." Anne nodded for him to continue. "Certain passwords are obvious to someone who knows you very well. They include names and birthdates of family members or close friends, personal characteristics or hobbies for which you are known, and license plate or social security numbers. A smart person will try those first if he wants to decrypt your text." "I probably shouldn't use 'rootbeer' or 'soda pop' then," said Anne, showing she understood. "On the other hand," said David, "the password must be something you will remember. Or else you must write it down and keep it in a secure place. If you forget your password, you are in the same situation as anyone else who wants to decrypt your text -- out of luck. By the way, the password doesn't have to be a word; it can be a phrase, or nonsense, or a random number. But you should try to make it as close to sixteen characters long as you can, because longer passwords are more secure." Anne pondered a minute. Then she typed in the words: A PENNY SAVED [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-10] "Does it matter whether it is capital or lower case letters?" she asked. David shook his head no. "What if I enter more than sixteen characters into the PASSWORD box?" Anne persisted. "Then the first fifteen characters of your password will be the first fifteen characters you entered, and the last character of your password will be the last character you entered," answered David. Hiding the PASSWORD "Now here is a useful trick," he added. "See the bottom of the screen, where it says: F6 Hide Press the <F6> key and watch what happens." As Anne pressed the key, the SOURCE, DESTINATION, and PASSWORD fields suddenly went blank. "That key hides the password and file information, so if someone else is looking over your shoulder they cannot discover your password or the files you are using. You can even press the Hide key before you enter your password or the file names. Then the characters you type won't appear on the screen, so that no one can see them as you enter them." Anne pressed the <F6> key again, and the information reappeared in the boxes. Starting Encryption "Now, how do I get it to actually encrypt something?" Anne asked. "I gather from the list of function keys at the bottom of the screen that I just press the <F1> key." "That's right," David acknowledged. Anne pressed the <F1> key. The form she had just filled out disappeared and a new one was displayed on the screen. It had two large rectangular boxes stretching across the screen. The top box was labeled "Source" and the bottom one "Destination." "Now, just start typing something," said David. Anne typed: Benjamin Franklin became frugal after his brother [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-11] The text appeared in the box labeled "Source." After the word "brother" she pressed the <RETURN> key. In the "Destination" box little chunks of nonsense text started to appear. "My goodness, so that is what encrypted text looks like," she exclaimed. When the encrypted text stopped appearing she typed in the second line: made fun of him for spending money on a tin whistle. Again, when she pressed <RETURN>, the encrypted text appeared in the "Destination" box. "I think I understand," Anne said. "I type my text in English. The computer transforms it into apparent nonsense and then prints it back out for me to read." "That's right," said David. "What does it mean at the bottom of the screen when it says 'Block being processed: 14 of ???'?" "The computer encodes the data in chunks that are eight characters long," explained David. "Each chunk is called a block. The Confidant tells you how many blocks it has processed so you will be aware at all times of the status of the encryption." "To stop, I just press the <F10> key, is that right?" said Anne. She touched the key and a message appeared at the bottom of the screen: The Confidant finished...Press any key to return to Main Menu. Anne pressed the space bar, and the familiar form where she entered her password returned. [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-12] ------------------------------------------------------------ DOING IT Make up some text of your own and type it into The Confidant so you can see how The Confidant works. Start by making up a password -- Anne Lambert's password, A PENNY SAVED, is useful if another one doesn't come to mind. Then press <F1> and type your text into the "Source" box. At the end of each line, remember to press the <RETURN> key and wait until the line is processed before you resume typing. If you want a sample of text to try out, here is one about passwords, or "keys," from "Guidelines for Implementing and Using the NBS Data Encryption Standard," Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 74, available from the U.S. Government Printing Office. KEY MANAGEMENT Management of the cryptographic keys used to protect data is of utmost importance to the security of the data... A new key should be generated and used when any event occurs that may have compromised the existing key. A new key should also be generated and used periodically in the event that an undetected compromise has occurred... Unencrypted keys must always be physically protected to prevent unauthorized individuals from gaining knowledge of their values... ------------------------------------------------------------ [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-13] Fixing Mistakes "The next thing is to try a file as the DESTINATION," recommended David. "Move to the DESTINATION box by pressing the <RETURN> key twice." Anne did so. "Now I just type the name of my file over the top of the word CONSOLE," she said. "Right," agreed David. "As you recall, a file description has three parts: the drive, the file name, and the file extension." "Yes," said Anne. "The drive is a single letter followed by a colon. The file name is one to eight characters. The extension is a period followed by one to three characters. Only I don't have to use an extension if I don't want to. And I only have to type the drive name if I want to use a drive that is not the 'default' drive." She typed in: B:FIZLE.TXT "Oh," she smiled. "That should be FIZZLE. Now you can see why I would never make it as a secretary. I can't type." "A perfect opportunity to point out the use of some other keys on the keyboard," responded David. "I suggest you move your cursor beneath the Z in FIZLE and then press the <INS> key on the keyboard. It will switch you into "insert mode" so you can insert characters into the text. All you need to do is type in a second 'Z'." "It works," said Anne as she did it. "Also, I noticed that the cursor changed size when I pressed the <INS> key." "To let you know you are in insert mode. Press <INS> again to switch back into regular mode." She did. "What other keys have special functions?" she asked. "All the keys do what the labels on them say they do," said David. "The <DEL> key deletes the character at the cursor position, the <HOME> key takes you to the start of your text or your form, and so forth." [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-14] "Now that I have the right file name, I can try encryption again," said Anne. "I'll use the same password as before." She pressed the <F1> key and the screen changed. This time there was only one rectangular box, the one marked "Source." Anne typed in: Franklin won his way into American hearts <RETURN> with his aphorisms in Poor Richard's Almanac. <RETURN> When she pressed <RETURN> at the end of each line, no text appeared at the bottom of the screen. But she knew the program was working because it displayed the block number it was processing. When the numbers stopped incrementing, she pressed the <F10> key to end. Then she pressed it again to return to the main menu. "How do I know it encrypted my text?" Anne asked. "Can I see it?" "Flipping" SOURCE and DESTINATION "Certainly," said David. "First, I'm going to show you a nice little convenience called the 'Flip' key. In order to see the file you just created, you would normally have to type its name in the SOURCE box and the word CONSOLE in the DESTINATION box. But the flip key does that for you, by just switching the SOURCE and the DESTINATION around!" He reached in front of Anne and pressed the <F5> key so she could see what he meant. The words in the SOURCE and DESTINATION boxes did change places. Copying "Now," continued David, "press the Copy key, <F4>, to look at what is in your file. The Copy key takes a copy of whatever is in the SOURCE and puts it into the DESTINATION. So it will take a copy of FIZZLE.TXT and show it on the console so you can see it." The screen cleared as Anne pressed the <F4> key. The familiar screen with the rectangular boxes returned, but with only the bottom box this time. In that box, the same kind of nonsense appeared that she had seen before. The line at the bottom of the screen showed how many blocks had been copied. When the program was finished, the prompt telling her how to get back to the main menu appeared, so she pressed the space bar and was back at the first form. [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-15] "To get back my original text --" Anne began. "By the way," David interrupted, "the original text is called 'plain text' and the encrypted text is called 'cipher text.'" "To get back my plain text," continued Anne, "I don't have to change anything on the screen now. I just press the key marked DES Decipher and it will decipher it?" "That's right," agreed David, watching as she pressed the <F2> key. Again, the bottom rectangular box appeared, just as when Anne used the copy function. But this time, the text was plain text. No more nonsense. When she got back to the main menu screen, Anne pressed the <RETURN> key to highlight the DESTINATION box. "This time, I'm going to decrypt the cipher text into a file, so I can edit it with my word-processing software," she declared. She typed the file name: FLAT.TXT over the word CONSOLE, then pressed the <F2> key again, to decrypt the cipher text in FIZZLE.TXT. When the decryption finished, she left The Confidant by pressing the <F10> key several times. Then she used her word-processing software to look at FLAT.TXT. Satisfied that the text looked just as she expected, she typed in some more sentences about Franklin. She saved them and exited back to the operating system. "Now, I can encrypt this text," she said, typing in the command CONFIDE and pressing the <RETURN> key. "Yes," said David. "Just remember that a word- processing program may insert some non-alphabetic characters into your text file. When The Confidant decrypts an encrypted version of such a text file onto your console, the text may not look as it did when you typed it in. To view it the way you typed it in, you should decrypt the text to a file, then examine that file using the same word-processing program you used to create the original file." [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-16] Anne entered the file name FLAT.TXT into the SOURCE box. She left the DESTINATION box as it was with the word CONSOLE, and used her old password again. ------------------------------------------------------------ DOING IT Practice entering encrypted text into a file, then "flipping" the SOURCE and DESTINATION and looking at it. Look at it with both the COPY and the DECRYPT options. Here is some text to try: Active wiretapping means that someone intercepts your message while you are transmitting it. He changes it quickly, then sends it on. The receiver never suspects that the message he receives from you is not the one you sent. Encryption helps make active wiretapping almost impossible. ------------------------------------------------------------ [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-17] Privacy "Are you going to try out the Privacy function?" David inquired. "I wanted to ask about that." said Anne. "What does it do, anyway?" "Try it," suggested David. She pressed the <F3> key. The destination box filled up rapidly with nonsensical cipher text. "It looks the same as when I used the DES Encipher key," exclaimed Anne. "Only it's considerably faster." "Precisely," said David. "Most people would never be able to tell that it was not produced by the DES algorithm, which is an extremely safe way of encoding data. A trained cryptologist would be able to tell the difference, after several hours of study. And he might be able to break the Privacy code. As far as I know, he would not be able to break the DES code." "So this is not as safe," said Anne. "No," said David. "But it is still very safe. The vast majority of people will never figure out what it produces. It is useful for encoding data that don't have to be kept extremely secret, but that you don't want everyone to see. That is probably 98% of the stuff you do. So you save time by using the PRIVACY code when you don't need the extreme protection offered by DES." ------------------------------------------------------------ DOING IT Try out PRIVACY. Notice how much faster it is than the DES option. An extra use of PRIVACY is for superencipherment, or encrypting your data twice, making it extra hard to decode. Use PRIVACY to encrypt a file you have Enciphered with DES. Then decrypt it, using first Privacy, then DES Decipher. You must decrypt in the REVERSE order you encrypted, or decryption won't work. ------------------------------------------------------------ [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-18] Directory and Erase SOURCE "I noted there are function keys for 'Directory' and 'Erase SOURCE'," said Anne. "What do those keys do?" "As you probably guessed," said David, "the <F7> or Directory key lists the files you have, in case you forget the name of a file or want to check what you have done so far. It will find just the file whose name is in the SOURCE box, or if the SOURCE box is empty or has the word CONSOLE in it, it will list all the files on the default disk. The <F8> or Erase SOURCE key erases the file whose name appears in the SOURCE box." "That is pretty much what I assumed," Anne said. "I should mention that both functions allow you to use so-called 'wildcard' characters," said David. "That means if you have several files with similar names, you can refer to all of them with just one name." "I think I know about wildcards," replied Anne. "If I have three files, FIZZLE1, FIZZLE2, and FIZZLE3, and I want to see a directory for all of them, I type in FIZZLE? in the SOURCE box. The question mark on the end tells the computer to find every file that starts with FIZZLE and has any other character in the position where I put the question mark. Then I press the <F7> key." "And an asterisk or 'star' can be used too," added David, "to mean 'all the positions in the file description from here to the end.' For example, if you want to erase all the files that start with 'FI' as the first two letters, and end with an extension of TXT, you would type FI*.TXT in the SOURCE box and press the <F8> key. Using The Confidant to Transmit Data Over the Telephone "I think I understand," Anne said, "Now, I want to try --" [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-19] At that moment two heads poked through the doorway into Anne's office. One was Barry Crocker, the director of the company's cafeteria, who was cherished by everyone for his superb pastries. The other was J. Atwood Powers, president of Icey Beverage Co. "Hey Doc!" Crocker hollered out to David. "It came to me the other day that Icey is really a software firm." The other three people in the room stared at him, puzzled. "Yeah, you know, our wares are soft drinks, get it? Soft wares." He laughed boisterously and waved his hand as he left the office, leaving the others chuckling. "I was hoping to see you," Powers addressed David. "Anne told me you were bringing some encryption software. Could it be used to send data over the telephone?" "What do you have in mind?" asked David. "My wife and I are flying to Finland tomorrow, ostensibly for a vacation. They have wonderful lakes, and their famous saunas, you know. But the real reason for the visit is that our scouts have discovered a recipe for a natural soft drink that the Finns drink during their May Day celebrations. I intend to test it out, get the recipe, and bring it back to see if we want to start bottling it." "Where does encryption fit in?" asked David. "You know how fierce the competition is in the soft drink bottling industry. I'm sure that other companies will be keeping an eye open to find out my plans and even to obtain a copy of the formula if possible." "So you want to encrypt the formula in order to make it incomprehensible to them," said David. "Exactly." "But you mentioned something about the telephone," said Anne. "Laura and I are going to be away for three weeks," said Powers. "I thought it would speed things up considerably if I could send the recipe over the telephone. I don't want to sound alarmist, but it is a well-known fact that some companies will gladly stoop [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-20] to a bit of industrial espionage if needed. And just in case, I'd rather play safe with something as important as the formula for a new soft drink." "I don't see that it will create any problem at all," said the consultant. "You can take along a portable computer that is compatible with the ones you use here. Add a modem to that, some communications and word-processing software, and The Confidant and you should have no fear." "Can you arrange the necessary equipment and software?" "Sure. But you'll need some time to get acquainted with them. When do you leave?" asked David. "Not until evening. But I have a full schedule. The only time open is early morning. Can you meet me here at six a.m.?" David groaned. "And on a Saturday, too." "I'll arrange for us to have breakfast while we're at it. Can you be here too, Anne? You're the obvious person to handle the transmission on this end." "No problem," she said. "I'll do anything for some of Barry's pastries." "I'm going home for some sleep," kidded David. "Even if it is only ten in the morning now," he laughed. "See you in the morning," he said as he left. Atwood Powers and Anne Lambert laughed too as they went back to their other work. * * * David was unloading a portable computer and a second copy of The Confidant from his car when Anne Lambert drove up in the morning. "Looks like Woody is already here," she said, pointing to another car in the lot. "Hope Barry put together something nice for us." Inside, they found Powers reading through the User Guide for The Confidant, and trying it out on Anne's computer. "There's really nothing to this," he said. "A child could do it once he understood the basic idea. How about if we run through the procedure we will use [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-21] to encrypt and transfer the soft drink formula. I don't want to leave it anything to chance." "Good idea," agreed David. "I think I'll have you set up this computer and modem in your office, Woody. Then you can go through the steps of entering the formula, encrypting it, and sending it from there. Anne can receive it from here, and decrypt it." In his office, Powers plugged in the portable computer, attached the modem cables, and switched it on. Then he inserted his word-processing diskette in the A drive and a blank, formatted diskette in the B drive. "I'll just type in a make-believe formula," he said to David and Anne, who had followed him to his office. In a few moments, he had created a reasonable looking formula. "Maybe we should 'leak' this to our competitors," he laughed. "It probably tastes awful." Powers saved the text on the diskette in his B: drive. "Alright," he said. "To encrypt this, I remove my word-processing software and replace it with The Confidant, right?" Both David and Anne nodded. "Then I type: CONFIDE and press <RETURN>. Now what?" "Type the name of the file containing the formula into the SOURCE box," said David. Powers typed: B:FORMULA.TXT and pressed <RETURN>. "Choose a name for the DESTINATION," Anne prompted. Powers typed in: B:FORMULA.CRY <RETURN> "And then I make up a password," he said, pausing. "Uh, David, I hope you won't feel badly. But the fewer people who know the password for the new formula, the better. Will you mind if I just show Anne. You can stand behind the computer while I type it in." [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-22] David moved back. Anne bent forward to view the password used by Powers. When she was sure she remembered it, she nodded. Powers pressed the <F6> key and the password disappeared. "Alright David," he said. "It's all clear now." "I can tell you have the right idea about security," said David. "The Confidant cannot do it all. Protecting your password is the best bet." Powers pressed the <F1> key to encrypt his formula. When the job was finished, he pressed the <F5> key to "flip" the SOURCE and DESTINATION. Then he pressed <F2> to look at the decrypted version. Just to make sure, he finished up by pressing <F4> to look at a copy of the encrypted file. As he expected, it was nonsensical cipher text. "Now," said Powers, "the next step is to transmit it to Anne's computer. Then she can decrypt it." He removed The Confidant from his diskette drive and replaced it with some file transfer and communications software that was capable of sending binary files. "Anne, make sure your machine is ready to receive, will you?" Anne left the room. Powers lifted the receiver of his phone and dialed her number. "All set?" he asked when she answered. "Okay," she replied. Powers placed the receiver into his modem. Then he used the telecommunications software to transfer B:FORMULA.CRY to Anne's machine. "All done," he said a few minutes later. "Now we shall see how successful this was." Atwood Powers and David Lyons marched into Anne Lambert's office. She had already disconnected her modem and replaced the communications software with The Confidant. As she typed in the name of the source file and the password, hidden by the <F6> key, everyone waited expectantly. "Here we go," she said, pressing <F2> to decrypt. A little shout of "Hurrah" went up from all three watchers as The Confidant displayed the correct decrypted text on the screen. [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-23] "I think we are going to have a very profitable vacation," said Powers. "Hey Doc," somebody said from behind the trio. "I'm in the software business too, you know." Everyone turned to look at Barry Crocker. "Yeah," he continued. "My wares are very soft." And he handed them a tray of fresh-baked pastries. * * * ------------------------------------------------------------ DOING IT By now, you should be ready for your graduation exercise. Actually, it's a graduation gift. You have earned a look at the secret formula that Atwood and Laura Powers discovered in Finland. It is still in the original form he sent back to Anne Lambert. Powers didn't take time to convert its measurements for production use by his company. It is still suitable for homemade use. So if you want a head start on Icey, you might make up a batch of your own. If you have followed along with David Lyons, Anne Lambert, and Atwood Powers, you should know how to decrypt the formula. We will simply tell you that the file is named CONFIDE.CRY. And the password is: FINNISH MAY DAY. ------------------------------------------------------------ [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-24] INDEX to the TUTORIAL A ASCII (code), 3 B Block, 12, 15 C Case, upper/lower in PASSWORD, 11 Cipher text, 16 Communications software to transmit encrypted text, 21, 23 CONSOLE, 9 Copying the SOURCE to the DESTINATION, 15 Cryptology, 4 Cursor, moving the, 14 D Data Encryption Standard (DES) procedure, 4, 18 Deciphering, using DES procedure from a file, 16 Deleting text or characters, 14 DESTINATION of cipher text in encryption, 9, 22 of plain text in decryption, 15ff of copied text, 15 Directory of existing files, 19 Diskette, copying and care of, 4 Disk drive, placing text on other than default, 14 Display (form), main, 7 encryption, 11,, 15 E Enciphering using DES procedure, to the CONSOLE, 11 to a file, 14 Encryption, 3, 11 Ending encryption, 12 Erasing the SOURCE file, 19 F File description, 14, 19 Flipping the SOURCE and DESTINATION names, 15 H HELP displays, 7 Hiding the PASSWORD on the display, 11 I Inserting text or characters, 14 [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-25] P Password, management, 13, 23 as used in encryption, 3, 7 PASSWORD for The Confidant, 9, 10 Password protection system, insecure, 2, 10 Plain text, 16 Privacy encryption procedure, 18 Protection of information, 1 S SOURCE of plain text for encryption, 9, 11, 22 of cipher text for decryption, 15ff of copied text, 15 as specifier for Directory search, 19 Starting encryption, 11 T Transmission of encrypted information, 20f, 23 W Wildcard characters in file descriptions, 19 Word-processing software changes appearance of text, 16 [The Confidant Tutorial (C) 1983, 1984 by Data Sage - page T-26]