From: Damien.Doligez@inria.fr (Damien Doligez)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 07:07:30 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re:  Cost to Crack Keys
Message-ID: <9508181407.AA07951@couchey.inria.fr>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


This is how you can crack SSL RC4-40 sessions for $1000 each:

Go to your bank and get a $250,000 loan over 10 years.  Assuming a 10%
interest rate, you will have to pay about $40,000 per year.  Use the
$250,000 to buy 50 low-cost high-speed pentium PCs.  Don't bother with
a screen, keyboard or mouse.  Get the minimum of memory.  Get a huge
discount (you're a really good client).

Pay $10,000 for the electricity bill, the real-estate rent, etc.

The machines will crack 50 keys per year on average.  They cost you
$50,000 per year.

That's $1,000 per key.

Does anyone see any hole in the above plan ?  It seems to me that
Netscape's estimate is one order of magnitude too high.

-- Damien