[67445] in Cypherpunks
Re: Can we kill single DES?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Declan McCullagh)
Sun Oct 6 11:03:27 1996
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 1996 07:50:08 -0700 (PDT)
From: Declan McCullagh <declan@eff.org>
To: Adamsc <Adamsc@io-online.com>
Cc: "cypherpunks@toad.com" <cypherpunks@toad.com>,
"trei@process.com" <trei@process.com>
In-Reply-To: <19961004020539265.AAB223@GIGANTE>
On Wed, 2 Oct 1996, Adamsc wrote:
> >1. Is this a good idea? What will happen if DES becomes perceived
> > as insecure?
>
> That's Declan's department (and other non-clueless journalists - declan is
> just the most visible). If it get's widespread and the target is something
> like Digicash, it'd get picked up by the Crime/Snoozeweek crowd.
This is the meme I've been trying to spread -- that 56-bit DES is *not*
secure. This cuts through all the rhetoric about differences between key
recovery and key escrow, who's going to be in this industry alliance, etc.
Bottom line: it sucks; your data are insecure; don't use it. That
argument is one jlists can understand.
And I think I've been successful. Tomorrow's issue of a popular
newsmagazine may mention just this.
-Declan
// declan@eff.org // I do not represent the EFF // declan@well.com //
