>> Then there's the question of whether you want to trust a company with >> your music and photos - a company that could potentially go defunct, >> and take your data with them. > > and any > encryption based on factoring large primes is a TOTAL illusion. the > gov't pushed that form of encryption precisely because they secretly > had an algorithm to crack any factoring problem quickly, and they were > very upset when a mathematician published results along those same > lines.
BUT ... in order to facilitate that fast-factoring algorithm, the government arbitrarily restricted the encryption key to 56 bits, down from 64 bits in the original DES specification. Today's encryption keys are 128 bits, or more. However, the government is no longer using IBM System/370 Model 168 and Amdahl 470 V/6 mainframes for cracking codes; they're now using arbitrarily large "clusters" of very fast x86 PCs. https://computing.llnl.gov/linux/yaci.html -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
