They must mean RSA512, of course. Given various people's pings to me about the death of 128-bit RC4, :-), someone should tell the New York Times, and others, about the difference between symmetric and asymmetric ciphers... Cheers, RAH At 9:12 AM -0700 on 10/12/00, NewsScan wrote:
SWEDISH TEAM CRACKS TOUGH COMPUTER CODES A team of Swedish computer enthusiasts has succeeded in deciphering 10 increasingly difficult codes presented by author Simon Singh in his bestseller, "The Code Book." Singh, who has a doctorate in physics at Cambridge University in the U.K., took two years to develop the brain teasers with Dr. Paul Leyland, who works for Microsoft in Cambridge. The codes, which took the Swedes the equivalent of 70 years of computer time to decrypt, ranged from ciphers dating back to ancient Greece through the famed Nazi Enigma code machine used in World War II. The team was awarded a check for $15,000 for their efforts. Team leader Fredrik Almgren said the task was extremely daunting and that he and his fellow scientists were tempted to abandon the effort several times: "The first stages were very simple but at one point we thought we wouldn't get any further than stage eight. When you do come to the 10th stage it is a question of heavy mathematics and rather difficult algorithms that I don't even claim to understand myself." (Reuters/New York Times 12 Oct 2000) http://partners.nytimes.com/2000/10/12/technology/12R-CODE2.html
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R. A. Hettinga