DES is dead

[Jim Thompson]

Forwarded, 'cause I've not seen it on cypherpunks as yet.
Note that the NIST has approved DES for another couple years.

Jim

Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 14:13:13 -0400 (EDT)
From: Matt Lawrence <matt at access.digex.net>
Subject: Re: [prz at columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU: Re: DES Key Search Paper (fwd)] (fwd)
To: eff-austin-directors at tic.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

With the crypto conference coming up, I figured y'all ought to see this.

-- Matt

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 8 Sep 93 09:57:27 EDT
From: Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox at ccs.neu.edu>
To: The Elboid Nation <elbows at mc.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: Re: [prz at columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU: Re: DES Key Search Paper (fwd)]

This came to me via one of the crypto lists I'm on. I'm certain some
of you crypto-weenies out there will be interested:

From: Philip Zimmermann <prz at columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU>
To: ratinox at ccs.neu.edu
Subject: Re: DES Key Search Paper (fwd)

Michael Weiner presented a paper at Crypto93 that describes a fast DES
key search engine that uses a special inside-out DES chip that he designed.
This chip takes a single plaintext/ciphertext pair and quickly tries 
DES keys until it finds one that produces the given ciphertext from the
given plaintext.  Weiner can get these chips made for $10.50 each in quantity,
and can build a special machine with 57000 of these chips for $1 million.
This machine can exhaust the DES key space in 7 hours, finding a key
in 3.5 hours on the average.  He works for Bell Northern Research in 
Ottawa, and says they have not actually built this machine, but he has
the chip fully designed and ready for fabrication.  

This is a stunning breakthrough in the realization of practical DES
cracking.  BTW-- note that PEM uses straight 56-bit DES.

-prz

Forwarded message:
>From prz Wed Sep  1 14:11:48 1993
>Message-Id: <9309012010.AA10083 at columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU>
>Subject: Re: DES Key Search Paper
>To: wiener at bnr.ca (Michael)
>Date: Wed, 1 Sep 93 14:10:18 MDT
>From: Philip Zimmermann <prz at columbine.cgd.ucar.EDU>
>Cc: prz (Philip Zimmermann)
>In-Reply-To: <"15836 Wed Sep  1 12:14:00 1993"@bnr.ca>; from "Michael" at Aug 31, 93 11:32 am
>X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL0]
>
>Thanks, Michael.  Your paper was the most important paper presented 
>at Crypto93, in my opinion.  It drove a wooden stake thru DES's heart.
>
>$1 million     - 3.5 hours
>$10 miliion    - 20 minutes
>$100 million   - 2 minutes
>
>It is not plausible to me that NSA's budget for examining DES-encrypted
>traffic is less than $100 million.   Two minutes.  Damn.  Two fucking
>minutes.  DES is dead, dead, dead.
>
>Regards,
>Philip
>
>

Rat <ratinox at ccs.neu.edu>                    Northeastern's Stainless Steel Rat
PGP Public Key Block available upon request          Ask about rat-pgp.el v1.61
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