[9582] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
NSA upgrade plans
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Arnold G. Reinhold)
Fri Oct 5 10:15:50 2001
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Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 13:00:04 -0400
To: cryptography@wasabisystems.com
From: "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>
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There is an interesting article in Federal Computer Week
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2001/0910/news-nsa-09-10-01.asp that
says NSA planning a major effort to modernize the nation's
cryptoystems "which are rapidly growing obsolete and vulnerable."
They quote Michael Jacobs, head of NSA's information Assurance
Directorate as saying the the underlying encryption algorithms are
nearing the end of their life expectancy.
There were hints in the past that NSA used 90-bit keys for some
ciphers. I wonder if that is the issue or if they see the quantum
computing handwriting on the wall and plan to go to 256-bit (or
larger) keys.
Arnold Reinhold
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