Re: DES

Jamie Jamison says:

Two questions about DES.

1) If the current, 56 bit, DES system is so easy to break why don't people switch over to a DES system that uses a larger key space, say 128 bits? People obviously aren't, so what's the barrier to this?

DES only takes 56 bit keys.

2) How much longer would it take to break triple DES versus standard DES using one of the key-breaking machines described?

Using brute force, it would take the cube of the time it takes to break single DES. Whether a more sophisticated techinque is possible is unknown. Perry