Internet, the cracking machine

[goldberg at mars.superlink.net]

Wei Dai writes:
>factor RSA keys of bit
>512: 20 minutes
>768: 50 days
>1024: 100 years
>2048: 1e11 years
>
>If you are reading this from an archive, divide the brute force numbers by
>4**(your current year-1995), and the factoring numbers by 8**(your current
>year-1995), for a factor of 2 improvement per year in each of the
>following: average CPU power, number of computers on the Internet, and
>factoring algorithm. 

BUT, one must remember that the power of 2 increase is going on during the
100 years effort to break the 1024 bit case, so, by these assumptions, the
1024 bit key will break sometime in the 6th year! 

Fred G.
Jon Goldberg