On Wed, Jan 21, 1998 at 03:04:07AM +0100, Anonymous wrote:
Bill Stewart writes:
Do the math, though, for 128bit. There are traditional analyses which include the amount of silicon on the earth, the number of atoms in the universe, etc. The general consensus is that traditional techniques are not feasible for brute forcing 128bit ciphers before the heat death of the universe.
Hard to say. Assuming that Quantum Cryptography doesn't allow finite-sized computers to do large exponentially complex calculations in short finite time, you're probably limited by the number of atoms in the available supply of planets, and Heisenberg may still get you if that's not a low enough limit. Moore's law isn't forever.
A practical 128-bit key-cracker could be built with about 10000 cubic ^^^^^^^^^ meters of silicon. (Figure one transistor per cubic micron, 1 ghz operation, do the math...) The technology to build a computer of that size is still a few years away, but it is theoretically possible to build ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ a 128-bit key-cracker without using quantum computers or travelling to other planets.
"In theory, theory and practice are the same, but in practice they are different." -- Kent Crispin, PAB Chair "No reason to get excited", kent@songbird.com the thief he kindly spoke... PGP fingerprint: B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44 61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55 http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html