From: "Douglas F. Elznic" <delznic@acm.org>
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 13:50:33 +0800
To: Trei Family <trei@relay-1.ziplink.net>
Subject: Re: DES 2 challenge: Are you going to help?
In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980110230904.007ec230@pop3.ziplink.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.96.980111004237.483I-100000@localhost>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Sat, 10 Jan 1998, Trei Family wrote:
> I've heard of only one organized group which plans to attack it; the one
> based at www.distributed.net This is the same group which successfully 
> brute forced 56 bit RC5 encryption. My educated guess, based on the speed 
> with which they are currently searching RC5-64 (about 11 Gkey/sec) and the 
> known speed differences between RC5 and DES searching, is that they have 
> a good but not certain chance of finding the key within the $10,000 window.
> [Interesting factoid - at that speed they could crack 40 bit RC5 keys at
> better than one a minute.]
But distributed.net will not be focusing all of thier computing power on
one project. They are also doing the old des contests. So the power will
be diminished a little bit.

--
Douglas F. Elznic
delznic@acm.org
"If they give you lined paper, write the other way."
Freedom through Electronic Resistance