Linux On Steroids: DIY supercomputer software from Sandia

[Faustine]

On Wednesday, August 8, 2001, at 02:28 PM, Faustine wrote:

> Lots of interesting possibilities for cryptographic applications, I'm
> sure...
> Massively Parallel Computational Research Laboratory
> http://www.cs.sandia.gov/
>Except when was the last time you heard of a Cypherpunks-interesting 
>cipher being broken with _any_ amount of computer crunching?

Since when did people stop trying? The last time I heard a researcher talk 
about trying to break a Cypherpunks-interesting cipher was last Thursday. 
Hearsay and hot air? Probably; nothing that merits repeating. But it's 
hardly a dead issue.


>(The "challenges" broken by a couple of our own list members over the 
>past several years were all weak ciphers by modern standards, or had key 
>lengths way below even the recommended lengths of the day. Increasing 
>the key lengths by just several bits ups the work factor by a factor of 
>ten or so. Increasing it to recommended levels ups the work factor to 
>the level of "not all the computers that will ever be built in all of 
>the galaxies of the universe" will be able to brute-force a crack.)

We've all heard that line before, but I still don't think it's too far-
fetched to assume that anyone who does work in this area might appreciate 
50 megs of free software to create his own supercomputer. 


>There are indeed some cryptographic uses for big computers, but not much 
>of real interest here. Some voice- and traffic-analysis stuff, but not 
>cracking modern ciphers.

You never know what might come from putting that kind of computational 
power in the hands of people here. Create, break, do whatever you want.

~Faustine.