TWAK!

Barring a _severe_ breakthrough in the entire nature of computing, >you still need at least 1 atom to store one bit of information. It would take more computing power than all the atoms in the world, with the ability to store 1 bit on a atom and other dazzling feats of miniaturization, to crack a >2048 bit key barring algorithmic breakthrough.

TWOK! Au contraire, mon ami... Breaking a 2048 bit key is approximately 1E16 (10 to the 16th power) harder than breaking a 512 bit key. The RSA-129 factoring effort broke a key of approximately 430 bits using about 6,000 MIPS years. That is about 2E17 instructions. Some estimates are that with current algorithms, a 512 bit key could be broken with not too much more work. If so, the total work to factor a 2048 bit key would be roughly 1E33 instructions. Eric Drexler estimates that with nanotech, it should be possible to create a 1 GHz processer that fits in 1/8 of a cubic micron. It would take 1E24 such processors to factor a 2048 bit number. If we wanted to factor that 2048 bit key in 1E6 seconds, a couple of weeks, we would need 1E18 processors, which would fit in a cube 100,000 microns on a side. This is 10 cm on a side, about the volume of a soccer ball. A far cry from the whole earth, no? "John ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com