Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ukma!sean From: sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Digital Signatures and Public Key Cryptography Message-ID: Date: 2 Sep 90 18:07:46 GMT References: <3026@mindlink.UUCP> Organization: The Leaning Tower of Patterson Office @ The Univ. of KY Lines: 26 a80@mindlink.UUCP (Greg Goss) writes: |The version of the story that I heard was that someone (an Israeli?) came up |with an algorithm to break one of the hottest key systems of the time. I don't |think he ever released the algorithm, but would be willing to be locked into a |room with an Apple II and his disk and a message and the matching public key, |and he would emerge within 24 hours with the other key. Rumors and legends like this abound in cryptoland. Supposedly there is an IBM PC program in Russia that can break DES in five minutes. I hope no one takes this stuff seriously. Read the Crypto conference journals and other publications. Mathematical geniuses have and will continue to analyze RSA, DES, and new schemes over and over again. As far as RSA goes, there is a proof that breaking RSA is at least as difficult as factoring pq. This proof has never been shown to be wrong in theory or practice. Most of the current effort towards breaking RSA seems to be concentrated in finding new factoring algorithms. Read sci.crypt. Sean -- *** Sean Casey sean@ms.uky.edu, sean@ukma.bitnet, ukma!sean *** rec.pyrotechnics: "Blow up or shut up."