NODE 02e6f22dRe: Netscape security
koontz@MasPar.COM (David G. Koontz)Fri, 18 Aug 95 11:28:48 PDT
>Now, I can see calling a MasPar a "parallel supercomputer"; another effort
>at the SSL challenge got the answer about 2 hours before Damien's did,
>and used about 4 days of spare time on the MasPar. Last time I looked,
>a MasPar was selling for about $150K, though I don't know how big the one
>used on SSL was. At that price, you could have your own for ~$500/day,
>and ripping off $2000 on a credit card isn't tough in today's automated world.
>Next year - computer time costs half as much.
Well, lets put it this way, an MP-2 with 16K processors could attack a 56 bit
key about as fast as a 486 could attack a 40 bit key. The next generation
MP will be less than an order of magnitude faster, although able to use
more processors.
An MP2 with 1K processors can do 220K crypt(3)/sec. Now, if it weren't so
darned hard to program one for performance...
One tends to wonder if there are analytical methods to reduce the search
space.
NODE 3ca016f8Re: Netscape security
adam@bwh.harvard.edu (Adam Shostack)Fri, 18 Aug 95 12:02:59 PDT
| One tends to wonder if there are analytical methods to reduce the search
| space.
I suspect that the PRNG used by Netscape navigator might yeild
up some clues if someone were to disassemble it. One might see if
secret_key_data and public_key_data are derived from the same seeds.
Adam
--
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
-Hume