At 1:49 AM 9/29/95, Douglas Barnes wrote:
[Tim May writes about why crypto h/w acceleration using DSPs, and DSPs in general, are likely doomed niche markets.]
I pretty much agree with Tim, except it's important to realize that a for a _server_ that is doing a lot of RSA operations, the difference between a 3.2 second encryption and a 1.9 second encryption is significant. Peak transaction volume for any public key-based payment system is going to be a factor of how many RSA ops you can do per second.
I don't disagree with Doug about this. But I don't think there are many "server" systems running a lot of RSA at this point...for most of us, the amount of RSA (or PGP, IDEA, DES, etc.) computation is a tiny fraction of the total computons consumed running screen savers. I'm just not convinced I'll soon invest in a company offering RSA acceleration. (I recall seeing articles about specialized modular exponentiation hardware in 1988, and Cylink was offering several such chips. I've yet to see any commercial boards, for reasonable prices. And I'm willing to be that no more than 3 members of our list would buy such a board, even if the hooks were in place to let PGP, RSAREF, etc. use it. Just a hunch.) --Tim May ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@got.net 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^756839 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."