Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!anasaz!qip!john
From: john@qip.UUCP (John Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: Digital Signatures and Public Key Cryptography
Message-ID: <4333@qip.UUCP>
Date: 2 Sep 90 21:37:52 GMT
References: <3026@mindlink.UUCP> <sean.652298866@s.ms.uky.edu>
Reply-To: john@qip.UUCP (John Moore)
Organization: Anasazi Inc, Phoenix AZ
Lines: 26

In article <sean.652298866@s.ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.edu (Sean Casey) writes:
]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.
]
I believe that the writer is correct that a public key algorithm was
broken, as described. The algorthm was not, however, RSA or DES. It
was a knapsack algorithm. Also, I believe that the cryptoanalytic
method was published at the same conference where the demonstration
took place.
-- 
John Moore HAM:NJ7E/CAP:T-Bird 381 {ames!ncar!noao!asuvax,mcdphx}!anasaz!john 
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