  Recently Bu and Wang [Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 19 (2004) 919] proposed a
simple modulation method aiming to improve the security of chaos-based secure
communications against return-map-based attacks. Soon this modulation method
was independently cryptanalyzed by Chee et al. [Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 21
(2004) 1129], Wu et al. [Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 22 (2004) 367], and
\'{A}lvarez et al. [Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, accepted (2004),
arXiv:nlin.CD/0406065] via different attacks. As an enhancement to the Bu-Wang
method, an improving scheme was suggested by Wu et al. by removing the
relationship between the modulating function and the zero-points. The present
paper points out that the improved scheme proposed by Wu et al. is still
insecure against a new attack. Compared with the existing attacks, the proposed
attack is more powerful and can also break the original Bu-Wang scheme.
Furthermore, it is pointed out that the security of the modulation-based
schemes is not so satisfactory from a pure cryptographical point of view. The
synchronization performance of this class of modulation-based schemes is also
discussed.
