From: frantz@netcom.com (Bill Frantz)
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 96 19:45:24 PST
To: Rick Busdiecker <mianigand@unique.outlook.net>
Subject: Re: 2047 bit keys in PGP
Message-ID: <199601040341.TAA19633@netcom5.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 19:52 1/3/96 -0500, Rick Busdiecker wrote:

>Another point to realize is that PGP uses a combination of ciphers.
>When encrypting, the RSA key is only used to encrypt an IDEA key.
>That IDEA key is used to encrypt your message.  Somewhere between 2048
>and 4096, you're making the RSA key stronger (harder to brute force)
>than the IDEA key.  At that point, the extra time that you're using
>for super-big RSA keys is totally wasted.

To nitpick:  Getting the RSA key will give you ALL the IDEA keys.  That is
probably worth 200-10000 times the effort.


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Bill Frantz                   Periwinkle  --  Computer Consulting
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