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At 09:52 24/06/97 -6, Peter Trei
Adam Back
writes.
About 10 years ago now Michael Wiener made a design for such a DES breaking machine. He estimated it would cost $10,000,000 to build a machine which would break a 56 bit DES encrypted message a few hours. His machine was scalable, pay more money, break the key faster,
<...> pay
less take longer. The estimate was that could build one with enough DES key searching units to break it in a day for $1,000,000. That was 10 years ago. 10 years is a long time in the computer industry. Nowadays you build the machine more cheaply as chip technology has progressed, and computers are much faster per $. Estimates are around $100,000 to build the machine (neglecting hardware engineers consultancy fees).
Go back and check the numbers - if you don't the journalists will. (I don't have this paper to hand either :-( ) The Wiener paper is much more recent (93?) , and the cost much lower (I think it was about $1M for HW and $500K for development costs, for a 3.5 hour machine).
Relevant section of AC2 is Table 7.1 (page 153) The numbers referred to above are slightly out: In 1995, $1M would give you a machine that would break 56-bit DES in an average of 3.5 hours A $10M machine would break 56-bit DES in an average of 21 minutes [Double the times for an exhaustive keysearch] <...> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: PGP for Personal Privacy 5.0 Charset: noconv iQA/AwUBM6/l3+Kk4yfQWUNhEQKW2ACgtC4Jpwy7TCPdXdvUkGuXrwiPDUMAoKD6 1XnG5v2Z9gJzQyrwQ8G4mJ1z =zOLc -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Lucas - Test Engineer @ SCO Cambridge. E-mail: davidlu@sco.com Opinions expressed within this message are my own and do not necessarily represent those of my employer * I am not a lawyer -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~