[49059] in Cypherpunks
Re: Lotus Notes
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Mazieres)
Fri Feb 2 21:33:25 1996
Date: Fri, 2 Feb 1996 21:30:51 -0500
From: David Mazieres <dm@amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu>
To: frantz@netcom.com (Bill Frantz), cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: frantz@netcom.com's message of Tue, 30 Jan 1996 23:08:13 -0800
> Tim May had it exactly right in his post entitled "Silver Linings
> and Monkey Wrenches" (thanks Tim). The only thing I can add is that
> forcing them to attack a 40 bit key is better than giving them the
> whole key thru some LEAF scheme ala Clipper.
Your point may be valid, but who is attacking a 40 bit key? Is
cracking 40 out of 64 bits of a 64-bit RC4 key as hard as cracking a
40 bit key, or does knowing a significant portion of the key make the
search considerably easier than brute force? I've never heard anyone
make an assertion either way, except that some people seem to assume a
the difficulties are the same.
Thanks,
David
