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Many people worry that quantum computers will be able to crack certain codes used to send secure messages. The codes in question encrypt data using “trapdoor” mathematical functions that work easily in one direction but not in the other. That makes encrypting data easy but decoding it hugely difficult without the help of a special key. . These encryption systems have never been unbreakable. Instead, their security is based on the huge amount of time it would take for a classical computer to do the job. Modern encryption methods are specifically designed so that decoding them would take so long they are practically unbreakable. The link for this article located at MIT Technology Review is no longer available. . These encryption systems have never been unbreakable. Instead, their security is based on the huge a. people, worry, quantum, computers, crack, certain, codes, secure. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
Researchers have decomposed a 768-bit number with 232 decimal places into its two prime factors and published a paper with their results. The number is the string released as "RSA-768" under the now defunct RSA Challenge. As a result, RSA encryptions with 768-bit keys must, from now on, be considered cracked. . It took the team of researchers from Switzerland, Japan, Germany, France, the US and the Netherlands about two and a half years to perform the factorisation. The first step of the calculation, polynomial selection, required half a year on a cluster consisting of 80 PCs, while the second and considerably more labour-intensive sieving step took about two years on a cluster of several hundred computers. According to the researchers, a single Opteron processor with 2 Gbytes of RAM would have needed about 1,500 years to complete the sieving step. The link for this article located at H Security is no longer available. . It took the team of researchers from Switzerland, Japan, Germany, France, the US and the Netherlands. researchers, decomposed, 768-bit, number, decimal, places, prime, factors. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
In contrast to the cooperative preparations required for setting up private key encryption, such as secret-sharing and close coordination between sender and receiver, you can act entirely on your own to create and publish two numbers that enable anyone, using the . . . . In contrast to the cooperative preparations required for setting up private key encryption, such as secret-sharing and close coordination between sender and receiver, you can act entirely on your own to create and publish two numbers that enable anyone, using the RSA encryption formula, to send a private message to you through a public channel. The message becomes "First Class" e-mail, so to speak, as if sealed in an envelope. Using the two numbers you have published, anyone can scramble a message and send it to you. You are the only one who can unscramble it--not even the sender of the message can decrypt the ciphertext. To set up RSA encryption, the main thing you need is a table of prime numbers. Begin by selecting two prime numbers at random. When the rsakeys.bc program asks for p and q, give it the two primes you selected. Of course, any numbers can be used for practice. Primes, especially large primes, make it more difficult for an eavesdropper to decrypt your message. The link for this article located at LinuxJournal is no longer available. . In contrast to the cooperative preparations required for setting up private key encryption, such as . contrast, cooperative, preparations, required, setting, private, encryption. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
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