Apologies if this already seen - JG =================================== Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 18:26:52 -0400 To: mac crypto list <mac-crypto@vmeng.com> From: Vinnie Moscaritolo <vinnie@vmeng.com> Subject: RC5 cracked Press Release and Background Sheet FORMAL PRESS RELEASE For Immediate Release Contact: David McNett October 22,1997 205-458-8208 SECURE ENCRYPTION CHALLENGED BY INTERNET-LINKED COMPUTERS CHICAGO, IL (October 22, 1997) In what could be called the largest distributed-computing effort ever, tens of thousands of computers linked across the Internet, under the leadership of distributed.net, decrypted a message encoded with RSA Labs' 56-bit RC5 encryption algorithm. Considered by many experts to be a sufficient level of encryption, this feat has cast grave doubts in the minds of analysts as to the level of encryption required to keep private data secure. "Our effort has shown that it is dangerous to consider any 56-bit key secure", says David McNett, one of the primary coordinators of this distributed supercomputing project. The distributed.net effort to decrypt the encoded message required massive computing power, harnessed by utilizing the idle, or otherwise unused computing power from ordinary office and home computers. Combined, these machines managed to evaluate 47% of the keyspace, or 34 quadrillion keys, before finding the winning key. At the close of the contest there were over 4000 active teams processing over 7 billion keys each second at a combined computing power equivalent to more than 26 thousand high-end personal computers. The work was performed entirely using consumer PCs during off-hours or otherwise idle time. Add them all together, however, and you have the world's largest computer. The winning key was found by Peter Stuer, working for the STARLab Bovine Team coordinated by Jo Hermans and centered in the Computer Science Department (DINF) of the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels, Belgium. Of the US$10000 prize from RSA Labs, Mr. Stuer will receive US$1000. US$8000 is being donated to Project Gutenberg, a non-profit organization created for the purpose of converting the classics of literature into electronic format for the unlimited public use. The remaining US$1000 is being retained by distributed.net to assist in funding future projects. Distributed.net is the brainchild of Adam L. Beberg. It is the largest non-profit venture focused on developing the full potential of distributed computing. Its purpose is to utilize the Internet, allowing home and office computer users to join forces in tackling great and seemingly insurmountable computational challenges. The net result is computing power sufficient to challenge the dominance of even the most expensive mainframes and research computers. Information about distributed.net is available from the official distributed.net web site at: http://www.distributed.net/ MEDIA CONTACTS: David McNett, Voice: (205) 458-8208, Fax: (205) 458-8206 nugget@distributed.net ALTERNATE: Adam L. Beberg, (708) 396-9532, beberg@distributed.net ------------------------------------------------------------------ SECURE ENCRYPTION CHALLENGED BY INTERNET-LINKED COMPUTERS Background for release dated October 22, 1997 distributed.net data sheet distributed.net web site: http://www.distributed.net/ Related sites: Project Gutenberg: http://www.promo.net/pg/ RSA Labs: http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/ RSA Secret Key Challenge: http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/97challenge/ Principal organizers: Adam L. Beberg, Software Engineer, Chicago, Illinois Jeff Lawson, Junior Computer Science Major, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, California David McNett, Computer Programmer/Network Administrator, Birmingham, Alabama Project statistics: Start of contest: January 28, 1997 Start of distributed.net effort: March 20, 1997 End of contest: October 19, 1997 Size of keyspace: 72,057,594,037,927,936 Number of "blocks":268,435,456 Number of keys in one "block": 268,435,456 Peak keys/day: 600,246,644,113,408 Peak keys/second: 7,200,000,000 (estimated) The unencrypted message: "It's time to move to a longer key length" Computing equivalents: Distributed.net is equivalent in processing power to: 14,685 Intel Pentium Pro 200 processors 13,362 Motorola PowerPC 604e/200 processors 116,326 Intel 486DX2/66 processors 58,163 Intel Pentium 133 processors Perspective: distributed.net could compromise 46-bit RC5 in under one hour. If you printed a single page to represent each key block as it was checked and placed those pages in a stack, it would grow 6.24 inches taller every minute. If keys were drops of water, the flow rate would be 464428 litres per second. If Keys were dollars, we could pay off the U.S. National Debt in 12.44 minutes. If keys were bytes, we could fill 290268 3 1/2" floppy diskettes every minute If keys were drops of water, the flow rate would be 122609 gallons per second. If Key Blocks were hamburgers, we could feed the entire city of Phoenix, AZ lunch each day The computer that found the key: CPU: Intel Pentium Pro 200 RAM: 128 megabytes Operating System: Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0 Owner: Vrije Universiteit, Brussels, Belgium Operator: Peter Stuer More information: http://dinf.vub.ac.be/bovine.html/ MEDIA CONTACTS: David McNett, Voice: (205) 458-8208, Fax: (205) 458-8206 nugget@distributed.net ALTERNATE: Adam L. Beberg, (708) 396-9532, beberg@distributed.net --Brian Bechtel, blob@ricochet.net Vinnie Moscaritolo http://www.vmeng.com/vinnie/ Fingerprint: 3F903472C3AF622D5D918D9BD8B100090B3EF042 "You can get a lot more with a smile and a gun then a smile, alone." - Al Capone -- Robert Guerra - PGP public key available on PGP key servers Email-> mailto:az096@freenet.toronto.on.ca Home Page-> http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3378