From: John Lowry <jlowry@bbn.com>
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 08:51:20 -0700 (PDT)
To: Robert Hettinga <dcsb@ai.mit.edu
Subject: Re: John Gilmore and the Great Internet Snake Drive
In-Reply-To: <v04011738b1d55fa3b8fe@[139.167.130.247]>
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19980720114859.009997f0@dave.bbn.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Oh please ...

As you point out, physics is not optional.  This is predictable and was
predicted.  Yawn.

I predict that 3DES will fall too - actual time it takes is left to the
student.

More interesting, how about a supposition that DNA computers will be able
to factor
interesting numbers within 5 years ?  Does that make certain other
algorithms into snake-oil ?

At the heart of this is the idea that "strong" cryptography is a fixed and
finite
set over time and that a change in that set will result in a change in the
policy restricting export.  It doesn't necessarily follow.  Lobbying is
necessary.

Perhaps all that happens is that DES now joins the crowd of exportable
algorithms :-)

One lesson I plan to observe - don't encrypt known plaintext unless you
have to !

John Lowry

At 04:20 PM 7/17/98 -0400, Robert Hettinga wrote:
>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>
>Congrats to Mr. Gilmore, EFF, et. al. for a very impressive DES crack.
>
>It seems that Gilmore and Moore's Law have just turned the
>once-respected DES into cryptographic snake-oil. He keeps hurting
>snakes like that, he's gonna get himself canonized. ;-).
>
>
>Seriously. Many thanks to Mr. Gilmore for proving, once again, that
>lobbying is pointless, and that physics is not optional.
>
>Outstanding. Marvellous.
>
>Cheers,
>Bob Hettinga
>
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>-----------------
>Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
>Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
>44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
>"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
>[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
>experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
>The Philodox Symposium on Digital Bearer Transaction Settlement
>  July 23-24, 1998: <http://www.philodox.com/symposiuminfo.html>
>
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