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Re: passwd hashing algorithm

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Miller)
Wed Apr 19 17:43:12 1995

Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 14:25:23 -0400 (EDT)
From: David Miller <isdmill@gatekeeper.ddp.state.me.us>
To: "David A. Wagner" <dawagner@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Cc: "John F. Haugh II" <jfh@rpp386.cactus.org>, dawagner@phoenix.Princeton.EDU,
        bugtraq@fc.net
In-Reply-To: <9504190421.AA08620@tucson.Princeton.EDU>

On Wed, 19 Apr 1995, David A. Wagner wrote:

> > 
> > > 1. 25 iterations of DES with the first 8 bytes of the
> > >    password as key, followed by 25 iterations of DES
> > >    with the second 8 bytes of password as key.
>    [ ... better version deleted ... ]
> > > (1) can be broken on a workstation with ~ 2^32 steps (and
> > > very little in the way of memory);
> > 
> > I've never seen anything resembling a convincing argument for this point.
> > 
> 
> Hrmm, well, I could give you the crypto explanation...do you
> want me to?  [Keywords: meet-in-the-middle, birthday attack]

Meet in the middle?  You have enough space to make that practical?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but meet-in-the-middle means that you're going 
to do the first part *and save all the output* , then do the last part 
(backwards) to check if it matches any of the stored strings.

Check my math here, cause I often slip up.....

You're going to store 2^56 strings of 8 bytes, then compare the result of 
2^56 operations to those 2^56 stored strings?

Can I have a workstation like that? :) :)

You've obviously got something else in mind.  By all means, please tell 
me how you're going to do it in 2^32 DES steps (still 2^35 (32 GB) bytes of 
storage, a non-trivial sum.)  Details and crypto-babble welcome:)


> 
> If not, I issue you a challenge.  I've included a small
> program at the end which implements (1) using libdes:

[challenge deleted]

I'll be happy to try it if you're serious about throwing that many 
resources at it.  First, tho, I'd kind of like to hear the theory behind 
it:) 

--- David
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
		It's *amazing* what one can accomplish when 
		    one doesn't know what one can't do!


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