Re: Cray contract info

ge.
>| 
>|   The PIM chips will be packaged by Cray utilizing its advanced multiple
>| chip module (MCM) packaging technology that allows the CRAY-3 to operate
>| with a record breaking 2.08 nanosecond clock rate. The PIM chips are
>| manufactured by National Semiconductor Corporation. The CRAY-3/SSS is
>| expected to be demonstrated in the first quarter of 1995. After this
>| initial demonstration, interested parties will be invited to try out other
>| applications.


I should note that this is almost 10 times faster than the Coherent Chips. 
Given that there is no need for interprocessor message passing in the 
DES tests, I rate that this chip could be 20 times faster than the 
earlier design. That puts it at 100 days per DES attack. 

This sounds like a pretty fun machine to get. All of the old vector
performance of the Cray bundled with the fun of the old CM-1/CM-2. 
You could get some _great_ results on specific problems. 

-Peter Wayner

Along with many others, Peter Wayner discusses craching DES:
> I rate that this chip could be 20 times faster than the 
> earlier design. That puts it at 100 days per DES attack. 

I really don't understand what the concern is here.  We all
have access to crypto that is much stronger than single DES.
Anybody who is using single DES for something so important,
that it is worthwhile to spend 100 supercomputer days to
crack it, is really such an idiot that they deserve whatever
they get.

Jim Hart
hart@chaos.bsu.edu