In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Declan McCullagh wr
ites:
> What I found most interesting was what Attorney General Reno said about the
> government's cryptanalysis abilities. When asked if she can break strong,
> >64 bit equivalent crypto, she said, "We have carefully looked at this and
> think it's possible," and declined to add details.
>
> DoD's Hamre said that there would be a big chunk assigned to cryptanalysis
> R&D in DoD's requested FY2001 budget but added "some of the parts you may
> be interested [in] I can't discuss." (I wouldn't necessarily read much into
> this. It could simply be a face-saving move.)
This isn't at all improbable -- just do the math.
Deep Crack cost $250,000; it works against a 56-bit cipher. Multiply that
by 256 and you get $64,000,000 -- hardly a preposterous increase in NSA's
budget. Sure, they want faster results; they'll also have economies of
scale, processors faster than 40 Mhz, etc.
