[118607] in Cypherpunks
Re: Israelis Crack RSA-512 in 12 Microseconds
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Vin McLellan)
Mon Oct 4 01:58:21 1999
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To: Eric Cordian <emc@chao.insync.net>, cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>
Message-Id: <E11Y0tj-0007LO-00@polaris.shore.net>
Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 01:42:56 -0400
Reply-To: Vin McLellan <vin@shore.net>
>RAH writes:
>
>> The Israeli Weizmann Institute has broken RSA 512 bit encryption in, get
>> this, 12uS (microseconds). And if that was not enough, it's handheld
>> using a mix of quantum and optical computing technology.
Eric Cordian replied, with admirable restraint:
>Before I Bwahahaha, and suggest that someone read the TWINKLE press
>release while stoned on drugs, is there any independent confirmation of
>this (ahem) achievment?
I fired off a email note to the Weizmann PR office after I read the
original Sunday Times (UK) article, and asked for a confirmation,
correction, or other comment on the claims made about Weizmann research in
the Times.
The inherent modesty of the Institute may have made it difficult for
its PR staff to quickly respond. (Or else they've been doubled up with
laughter and enjoying the Sabbath.) In any case, no response as yet.
The Weizmann website does not, of course, have anything remotely or
even vaguely similar to this news of a hand-held quantum computer among the
bulletins on its website.
Alas, this is simply yet another incoherent and idiotic British
media report on cryptography. The Sunday Times is challenging the BBC
Online to see which institution can most briskly package and disseminate
stupidity about science and technology. (The respective editors are invited
to click their heels together and return to Kansas with Dorothy.)
The Korean and Japanese media had a rash of similar Chicken Little
reports last week. They were usually articles which concatonated the
Gemplus report last April about a weakness in the ISO 9796 digital signature
standard, Shamir's TWINKLE report from last May, and the successful
factoring of a 512-bit (195 digits) RSA Challenge number in August -- all
wrapped in a profound sense of pending doom.
I can't wait to see what they do with palmtop quantum computing and
the end of the Enigma Era in cryptography (as translated from the Sunday Times.)
I've been hoping this is all correlated to some lunar cycle.
Suerte,
_Vin
"Cryptography is like literacy in the Dark Ages. Infinitely potent, for good
and ill... yet basically an intellectual construct, an idea, which by its
nature will resist efforts to restrict it to bureaucrats and others who deem
only themselves worthy of such Privilege."
_A Thinking Man's Creed for Crypto _vbm
* Vin McLellan + The Privacy Guild + <vin@shore.net> *
>I know we've poked a bit of fun at the Weizmann Institute in the past,
>over their Press Releases claiming various great discoveries. Given that
>the TWINKLE paper only described a sieving device which no one had yet
>built, and a supercomputer with gigs of ram would still required to reduce
>the Big Overdetermined Boolean Matrix after sieving is completed, you will
>excuse me if I take this "RSA-512 broken in 12 Microseconds with handheld
>quantum/optical device" claim with with a grain of salt.
>
>In fact, if such a device exists, I will personally apologize to the
>Weizmann Institute for making fun of them, and will promise not to laugh
>at any future spoof Weizmann press releases Dr. Vulis may write. :)
>
>--
>Eric Michael Cordian 0+
>O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
>"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"
>
>
