From: Dale Thorn <dthorn@gte.net>
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 1996 17:42:04 +0800
To: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: support for "crack DES"
In-Reply-To: <199610032143.OAA13883@mail.pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <3254AE32.1DFA@gte.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


jim bell wrote:
> At 01:26 PM 10/3/96 +0000, Omegaman wrote:
> >Considering the situation -- considering that RSA has even signed on
> >to this scheme -- I'd have to say that I don't give a rat's ass what
> >Bill Gates claims.  If Micro$oft bucks the system, I'll gladly
> >applaud their stand.
> >The situation is not good at all.
> >Cracking DES (whether distributed or through a hardware crack, or
> >both!) seems critical at this point.

> Just remember that it would be far better to make the crack look easy,
> than to make it look hard.  quantity 9000+, $1,000 Pentiums for a year
> (plus maybe $500,000 in electricity) looks "hard."   1000 dedicated
> chips (whether they be FPGA or custom or...) for 1.5 months or so
> looks "easy."
> The latter crack looks far more likely to be repeated.  The former is
> OBVIOUSLY a stunt.

I don't know from discussion here whether anyone wants to take this in 
front of one of those C-Span Congress hearings or not; it's not that 
hard to do if you weasel your way in with the right folks....

Timing is important, and the element of surprise.  From what I hear, 
Sen. Specter was hoping to gild his bid for the pres. race with his 
hearings on militias et al, then he got sideswiped by some smarter 
people who had documents in hand.

If "the box" is ready at the right time, and you can catch the politicos 
at a moment when they're increasing their ambition, it could make a 
heckuva bang.

The fundamental laws of logic (via Joey the Hit Man):
Never steal from the boss,
never, ever rat on the boss,
and above all, don't get too ambitious.