From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 02:51:03 +0800
To: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject: Re: CWD: "Jacking in from the "One that Got Away" Port
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9606040505.A13202-0100000@well>
Message-ID: <199606041331.JAA09003@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Declan McCullagh writes:
> The key length for symmetric-key cryptosystems isn't comparable to the key
> length for public key cryptosystems. 

You should have stuck with that.

> 1024-bit RSA is as hard to crack as three nested iterations of 56-bit DES.

Unknown. Cracking 3DES and 1024 bit RSA are both hard, but the
algorithms used for brute forcing both of them are very different. I
would say that making comparisons between them is probably in general
a bad idea, especially given that over long periods of time the
techniques used improve at different rates.

The conservative attitude is, in any case, always "encrypt until it
hurts and then back off a little bit."

Perry