"R. A. Hettinga" writes:

They must mean RSA512, of course.

Given various people's pings to me about the death of 128-bit RC4, :-), someone should tell the New York Times, and others, about the difference between symmetric and asymmetric ciphers...

Cheers, RAH

Someone might also want to tell them that "70 years of computer time" is a meaningless measurement unless they define how many cycles are in a year of "computer time." Of course, I could be missing some phantom standard concerning what constitutes a year of computer time.

...

codes, which took the Swedes the equivalent of 70 years of computer time to decrypt, ranged from ciphers dating back to ancient Greece through the