Category : Databases and related files
Archive   : CONFIDE.ZIP
Filename : TUTORIAL.DOC
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* THE CONFIDANT (tm) *
* TUTORIAL *
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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
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
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:
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
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
She pressed the
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
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
files by pressing the
------------------------------------------------------------
[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
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
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
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
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
"That's right," David acknowledged.
Anne pressed the
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
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
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
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
At the end of each line, remember to press the
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
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 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
key."
"To let you know you are in insert mode. Press
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
at the cursor position, 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
This time there was only one rectangular box, the one
marked "Source." Anne typed in:
Franklin won his way into American hearts
with his aphorisms in Poor Richard's Almanac.
When she pressed
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
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
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,
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
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
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
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
to decrypt the cipher text in FIZZLE.TXT.
When the decryption finished, she left The
Confidant by pressing the
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
"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
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
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
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
"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
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
"Type the name of the file containing the
formula into the SOURCE box," said David.
Powers typed:
B:FORMULA.TXT
and pressed
"Choose a name for the DESTINATION," Anne prompted.
Powers typed in:
B:FORMULA.CRY
"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
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
formula. When the job was finished, he pressed the
pressed
make sure, he finished up by pressing
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
expectantly.
"Here we go," she said, pressing
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]
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