[2185] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Efficient DES Key Search
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (yhp)
Wed Feb 25 18:38:34 1998
From: yhp <iclysdal@thetoybox.org>
To: cryptography@c2.net
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 1998 16:42:50 -0500 (EST)
Cc: perry@piermont.com, markham@securecomputing.com,
rsmith@securecomputing.com, ptrei@securitydynamics.com
Continuing along Perry's line of thought...
A reference to a much more cost/speed effective method for breaking DES is
Mike Wiener's paper on "Efficient DES Key Search," which is available at
ftp://ripem.msu.edu/pub/crypt/docs/des-key-search.ps
It outlines a design for a machine that could be built for $1 million dollars
which would find a DES key in, on average, about 3.5 hours. This was using
hardware available in 1993 - one suspects that the machine could most likely
be further optimized given modern technology.
So not only would this be one third the cost of Rick Smith's estimate, but
it would result in a key in a matter of hours, rather than in a month.
Just because software is not an efficient way to break DES doesn't mean that
it is a safe method for cryptography.
ian
--
ian clysdale (him) * "i would say our bank loses far more credit cards
iclysdale@thetoybox.org * numbers to privileged employees than to fourteen
hail eris fnord * year old hackers" - paul wing, vp, scotiabank
