On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 08:53:18PM -0800, Jon Callas wrote: > >In the NBC TV episode of /Chuck/ a couple of weeks ago, the NSA > >cracked > >"a 512-bit AES cipher" on a flash drive "trying every possible key". > >"Could be hours, could be days." (Only minutes in TV land.) > > > >http://www.nbc.com/Chuck/video/episodes/#vid=838461 > >(Chuck Versus The Fat Lady, 4th segment, at 26:19) > > > >It's no wonder that folks are deluded, pop culture reinforces this. > > No, this is simple to do. > > What you is to start with a basic cracking engine. And then you add > another one an hour later, and then an hour later add two, then add > four the next hour and so on. > > If you assume that the first cracker can do 2^40 keys per second, then > you're guaranteed to complete in 472 hours, which is only 20 days. And > of course there's always the chance you'd do it in the first hour. > > For those who doubt being able to double the cracking power, Moore's > law proves this is possible.
In the well-known Indian fable, the King was bankrupted by doubling grains of rice on a 64-square chess-board. Back in the USSR, every school-child learned this fable. Oh, and chess was pretty popular too... The fact that the fable refutes the *sustainability* of Moore's "law" seems to be under-appreciated on this side of the Iron-curtain. It is not a question of whether, but rather when the departure from Moore's "law" will take place. The computing power of the microprocessor is still under 32 powers of 2 from its inception, naive extrapolation to the next 32 powers of 2 is unwise. -- Viktor. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]