🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan9.163011.23230@csi.uottawa.ca> cbbrowne@csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne) writes:
> [regarding the ability of the NSA to break DES encoded messages...]
>
>
>If that $56 figure is faintly accurate, then I expect that the NSA
>must have some rather high-speed hardware, probably specialized to
>DES, that costs quite a bit less than anyone expected.  I would have
>expected a somewhat higher bill.

Well, to the best of my knowledge the NSA has one of the largest
collections of supercomputers (Y-MPs, etc.) in the world.  This is thier
job after all, to crack codes.  In all the various conspiracy theories and
other guesses regarding DES and the NSA, it should be noted that DES was at
one time used for secure encryptin of files for some branches of the
government (the "standard" in DES... :) and was decertified for this role
as scheduled.  Few ciphers will last forever.  In time even the 1024 bit
public keys people consider secure now will be crackable for $56.  

jim




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