From: Secret Squirrel <nobody@secret.squirrel.owl.de>
Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 08:47:36 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: NSA leak (fwd)
Message-ID: <19970727234600.3398.qmail@squirrel.owl.de>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Subject: Re: NSA leak (fwd)

Ian Goldberg <iang@cs.berkeley.edu> writes:
> 2. Their cracker changes the state of 2^128 bits in 33 minutes.  This is
>    being extremely generous;

>                          (Actually, for all I know, terawatt power sources
>    may exist; that's out of my field.  Please let me know if this is the case.


Not within a few million miles of here, and they'd be hard to conceal.

A few GW is fairly easy, by several methods.

Terrestrial fusion is not a serious contender yet, and I doubt
it will be for a long time.



> 3. They have a quantum computer, or some alien technology, or something
>    else we know pretty much nothing about.

> Given this choice, I would vote for #3. :-)  However, I'd go out on a limb
> and say that the NSA guy was simply lying (or that the anecdote itself is
> mistaken).

I agree.  The 'something else' could be info about RNG flaws I suppose.
This guy couldn't be thinking about DES could he ?