Cost to Crack Keys

At 4:45 PM 8/17/95, Rev. Mark Grant wrote:
>>      In this case he had to use roughly
>>      $10,000 worth of computing power (ballpark figure for having access to
>>      120 workstations and a few parallel supecomputers for 8 days) to break
>>      a single message.
>
>Hmm, I don't know about anyone else around here, but my workstation is
>idle 99% of the time. I could almost certainly get access to all the spare
>CPU cycles on 120 workstations for free, and I suspect that a lot of
>people (particularly hackers) could do so as well. There's no need to
>spend $ 10,000 on renting them.

But, Mark, estimates of the cost to crack a key _must_ be based on market
prices, not on opportunistic access to machines. Such access is good for
occasional, or one-shot, deals, but not for routine use.

For example, one doesn't say "Hey, I don't see how Hertz can charge $40 a
day to rent a car...my friend lets me use his for free."

The technical issues of whether there are faster ways to break the keys, or
how fast and far MIPS prices will drop, is a separate issue.

"Standard accounting practices" dictate the way to estimate production costs.

--Tim May

---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May            | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net (Got net?)  | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
408-728-0152              | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Corralitos, CA            | black markets, collapse of governments.
Higher Power: 2^756839    | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available.
"National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."

> 
> But, Mark, estimates of the cost to crack a key _must_ be based on market
> prices, not on opportunistic access to machines. Such access is good for
> occasional, or one-shot, deals, but not for routine use.
> 

Is it opportunistic access of machines, Tim, or simple use of available machines? I don't 
think this kind of access is limited to one shot deals.  I've seen enough environments where 
the cpu cycles to achieve these kinds of tasks (brute forcing keys) are available and  no one 
is much going to care if it is done in a lowprofile manner.

> For example, one doesn't say "Hey, I don't see how Hertz can charge $40 a
> day to rent a car...my friend lets me use his for free."
> 

Indeed - but what is the real market value of the cpu cycles needed to pull off the task at 
hand? I think its far less than $10,000.00

> 
> "Standard accounting practices" dictate the way to estimate production costs.
> 

Thats like accepting the amortized value of an object as its real value. I don't think GAAP 
really comes into play here...

> tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May) writes:
> For example, one doesn't say "Hey, I don't see how Hertz can charge $40 a
> day to rent a car...my friend lets me use his for free."

> "Standard accounting practices" dictate the way to estimate production costs.

Actually, I do say that, but in a slightly different way.  If I want to
estimate the cost to get home from the airport, I might say "I have two
friends with cars who might give me a ride, or I could rent a car from
Hertz."  Most of the time a free car will be available; once in the last
couple of years I rented a car at the airport to get home.  My average
cost hasn't been zero, but has certainly been a lot less than $40 ($29
from National, but that's not important now).

Finding a cheap or free ride from one place to another should not be a
problem if you live in a city of helpful people driving to and fro in
vehicles with no passengers.

There are lots of free seats on the CPU bus today!

Share and enjoy...

	Jim Gillogly
	Highday, 25 Wedmath S.R. 1995, 19:46