From: "Mark W. Eichin" <eichin@cygnus.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Dec 92 15:53:18 PST
To: fnerd@smds.com
Subject: re: understandable cypher software
In-Reply-To: <9212032155.AB19933@smds.com>
Message-ID: <9212032352.AA02808@tweedledumber.cygnus.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


>> RSA seems to depend on doing modulo-multiply on big integers.  What are the 
>> relative speeds of the different modmults in PGP (modulo processor speed)...
	Also consider reliability. As of 2.0, modmult on the SPARC
(using the MERRITT code) fails on some keys, while either the PEASANT
or UPTON routines function correctly but are slower. (I haven't had
time to test them in parallel and find where they diverge, but there
is a large keyring "out there" that breaks the MERRITT code in several
places...)
	(on the main thread, yes, understanding "the whole thing" is a
good idea, and perhaps modifying the code to make this easier is a
useful development goal...)
								_Mark_