Hi, Although it is widely believed that 3DES is substantially stronger than DES, as it is less amenable to brute force attack, it should be noted that real cryptanalysis of 3DES might not use brute force methods at all. Instead, it might be performed using variants on differential or linear cryptonalysis.
3DES is generally quoted as having an effective key length of 112 bits, as opposed to the 56 bits for DES. At the rate they claim, it would take about 304,313,814,678,323 years maximum (slow/older computers) to crack 3DES. No encryption algorithm is permanently safe from brute force attack, because of the increasing speed of modern computers. ::dc:: David Correa RHCE CCNA http://www.linux-tech.com
