"Peter Trei" writes:
Since it looks like the US government will be allowing the export of 56 bit espionage-enabled software, it's time to kill single DES.
Double plus agreed.
On this type of processor, it would still take 9133 years to exhaust a 56 bit key space. On the other hand, on 20,000 processors of this power it would take less than 6 months. If the target is encrypted in a chaining mode with an unknown 8 byte IV, the time more than doubles.
Clearly, this goes far beyond the number of cpus available to the members of this list (though well within the power of most governments and many corporations)
The best idea I've heard for recruiting this many cpu cycles is to create a screen saver which does DES-cracking while machines are idle. Another incentive is to offer a cash prize to the person(s) who find the key.
These are both possibilities.
1. Is this a good idea? What will happen if DES becomes perceived as insecure?
Well, I believe that we are better off if the general perception catches up with reality.
2. What is the probability of success required to make it worth doing?
We need 50% success in one month to make it reasonably worthwhile.
3. What would be the consequences of failure?
I don't think we will fail :)
4. What other platforms than NT/Win95/Pentium should be considered? I could write a Unix demon version, but unless it's tailored for the cpu, a lot of efficency is lost (The aggregate number of idle cycles available for testing is the crucial number).
Other CPUs: MC68k, PowerPC, SPARC and Alpha versions, in roughly that order.
5. What's a good target?
Good question :)
Assume that the program will be a Win95/NT screen saver or Unix deamon.
An X screen saver would also be good. Lots of Linux/FreeBSD/NetBSD/BSDI weenies in the world. Perry