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Re: Report available: "Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers"

4 expanded posts ยท every known parent and child

NODE 0906ac78Re: Report available: "Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers"
I downloaded this so-called "report". It doesn't even mentions PGP.
Gotta wonder why the 007 wannabe "experts" and the Big Business (BSA)
want you to only use 90 bits for your keys and why they've never heard
of PGP...

Anyone who listens to crypto advice from people who's purpose in life
is to listen to *YOU* gets what they deserve. I'll stay with PGP which
has a 2048 bit key.

JustWalT
NODE 5be8936eRe: Report available: "Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers"
> I downloaded this so-called "report". It doesn't even mentions PGP.
> Gotta wonder why the 007 wannabe "experts" and the Big Business (BSA)
> want you to only use 90 bits for your keys and why they've never heard
> of PGP...
> 
> Anyone who listens to crypto advice from people who's purpose in life
> is to listen to *YOU* gets what they deserve. I'll stay with PGP which
> has a 2048 bit key.
> 
> JustWalT

There is one born every minute.


-- 
+----------------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
|Julian Assange                    | "if you think the United  States has    |
|FAX: +61-3-9819-9066              |  stood still, who built the largest     |
|EMAIL: proff@suburbia.net         |  shopping centre in the world?" - Nixon |
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NODE ecb2aa78Re: Report available: "Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers"
> want you to only use 90 bits for your keys and why they've never heard
> of PGP...
> 
> Anyone who listens to crypto advice from people who's purpose in life
> is to listen to *YOU* gets what they deserve. I'll stay with PGP which
> has a 2048 bit key.

The 90-bit key length is for secret key ciphers, not public key
ciphers.  There is a conversion metric for public key ciphers based
upon the difficulty of breaking the cipher.

For example, a 1024 bit RSA key is about 85 bits of security, which is
below the 90-bit limit they are proposing.  The 90-bits of security
does not mean you are limited to a 90-bit RSA key.

-derek
NODE e7c0fa32Re: Report available: "Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric Ciphers"
> I downloaded this so-called "report". It doesn't even mentions PGP.
> Gotta wonder why the 007 wannabe "experts" and the Big Business (BSA)
> want you to only use 90 bits for your keys and why they've never heard
> of PGP...
> 
> Anyone who listens to crypto advice from people who's purpose in life
> is to listen to *YOU* gets what they deserve. I'll stay with PGP which
> has a 2048 bit key.

The group of 7 in question are definitely not `wannabes'.  They are
about as knowledgeable a group as you could find outside of the NSA.

The report discussed the length of key needed for *symmetric*
crytosystems.  As this pertains to PGP, it uses a 128 bit session key
for the IDEA symmetric algorithm.  Not 2048.

Their recommendation was for a *minimum* of 90 bit keys for data
that must remain private for any length of time.  Given the calculations
they stated, this seems reasonable.

Richard Coleman
coleman@math.gatech.edu