[878] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: DES cracking is making real progress
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Phil Karn)
Thu May 22 00:45:25 1997
Date: Thu, 22 May 1997 02:00:56 +0000 (UTC)
From: Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>
To: pfarrell@netcom.com
CC: nelson@media.mit.edu, a.brown@nexor.co.uk, cryptography@c2.net
In-reply-to: <199705202221.PAA23328@netcom13.netcom.com> (message from Pat
Farrell on Tue, 20 May 1997 18:21:39 -0400)
>The American and UK bankers that I've talked to are quite
>comfortable with DES today. I don't know if breaking one
>key will change that.
Another data point: Wells Fargo (a major California-based bank) has a
policy of not allowing the "international grade" web browsers to be
used for online banking for the more sensitive functions like writing
checks to arbitrary recipients.
I don't know how they feel specifically about 56-bit DES, but clearly
their threshold of pain is somewhere above 40 bits.
Phil
