|  | <<  
             ^ 
              >> 
            
              | Date: 1999-01-19 
 
 DES/Crack: Neuer Weltrekord 22 Stunden-.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.-
 
 q/depesche  99.1.19/4
 updating      99.1.19/2
 
 DES/Crack: Neuer Weltrekord 22 Stunden
 
 Die Weltpartie von Krypto-Knackern hat den 56bit DES
 Schlüssel in 22. Stunden 15 Minuten aufgemacht. Den
 bisherigen Weltrekord hielt der Brute/Force/Hobel der
 Electronic Frontier Foundation (65 Stunden),  "Deep Crack"
 hat auch bei diesem Joint Effort kräftig mitgewirkt.
 Distributed.net ist seit Stunden schwer zu erreichen, die
 Maschinen sind halt müd.
 
 
 blitz/relayed by
 Lothar Fritsch fritsch@fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de
 J. Pepelnik" <pepelnik@gmx.net
 arne_weitzl@magicvillage.de (Arne Weitzl)
 
 -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-
 RSA DATA SECURITY CONFERENCE, SAN JOSE, Calif.,
 January 19, 1999 -- Breaking the previous record of 56 hours,
 Distributed.Net, a worldwide coalition of computer
 enthusiasts, worked with the Electronic Frontier Foundation's
 (EFF) "Deep Crack," a specially designed supercomputer,
 and a worldwide network of nearly 100,000 PCs on the
 Internet, to win RSA Data Security's DES Challenge III in a
 record-breaking 22 hours and 15 minutes. The worldwide
 computing team deciphered a secret message encrypted
 with the United States government's Data Encryption
 Standard (DES) algorithm using commonly available
 technology. From the floor of the RSA Data Security
 Conference & Expo, a major data security and cryptography
 conference being held in San Jose, Calif., EFF's "Deep
 Crack" and the Distributed.Net computers were testing 245
 billion keys per second when the key was found.
 
 First adopted by the federal government in 1977, the 56-bit
 DES algorithm is still widely used by financial services and
 other industries worldwide to protect sensitive on-line
 applications, despite growing concerns about its vulnerability.
 RSA has been sponsoring a series of DES-cracking contests
 to highlight the need for encryption stronger than the current
 56-bit standard widely used to secure both U.S. and
 international commerce.
 
 "As today's demonstration shows, we are quickly reaching
 the time when anyone with a standard desktop PC can
 potentially pose a real threat to systems relying on such
 vulnerable security," said Jim Bidzos, president of RSA Data
 Security, Inc. "It has been widely known that 56-bit keys,
 such as those offered by the government's DES standard,
 offer only marginal protection against a committed adversary.
 We congratulate Distributed.Net and the EFF for their
 achievement in breaking DES in record-breaking time."
 
 As part of the contest, RSA awarded a $10,000 prize to the
 winners at a special ceremony held during the RSA
 Conference. The goal of this DES Challenge contest was not
 only to recover the secret key used to DES-encrypt a plain-
 text message, but to do so faster than previous winners in
 the series. As before, a cash prize was awarded for the first
 correct entry received. The amount of the prize was based on
 how quickly the key was recovered.
 
 "The diversity, volume and growth in participation that we
 have seen at Distributed.Net not only demonstrates the
 incredible power of distributed computing as a tool, but also
 underlines the fact that concern over cryptography controls is
 widespread," said David McNett, co-founder of
 Distributed.Net.
 
 "EFF believes strongly in providing the public and industry
 with reliable and honest evaluations of the security offered by
 DES. We hope the result of today's DES Cracker
 demonstration delivers a wake-up call to those who still
 believe DES offers adequate security," said John Gilmore,
 EFF co-founder and project leader. "The government's current
 encryption policies favoring DES risk the security of the
 national and world infrastructure."
 
 The Electronic Frontier Foundation began its investigation
 into DES cracking in 1997 to determine just how easily and
 cheaply a hardware-based DES Cracker (i.e., a code-
 breaking machine to crack the DES code) could be
 constructed. Less than one year later and for well under U.S.
 $250,000, the EFF, using its DES Cracker, entered and won
 the RSA DES Challenge II-2 competition in less than 3 days,
 proving that DES is not very secure and that such a machine
 is inexpensive to design and build.
 
 "Our combined worldwide team searched more than 240
 billion keys every second for nearly 23 hours before we found
 the right 56-bit key to decrypt the answer to the RSA
 Challenge, which was 'See you in Rome (second AES
 Conference, March 22-23, 1999)'," said Gilmore. The reason
 this message was chosen is that the Advanced Encryption
 Standard (AES) initiative proposes replacing DES using
 encryption keys of at least 128 bits.
 
 RSA's original DES Challenge was launched in January 1997
 with the aim of demonstrating that DES offers only marginal
 protection against a committed adversary. This was
 confirmed when a team led by Rocke Verser of Loveland,
 Colorado recovered the secret key in 96 days, winning DES
 Challenge I. Since that time, improved technology has made
 much faster exhaustive search efforts possible. In February
 1998, Distributed.Net won RSA's DES Challenge II-1 with a
 41-day effort, and in July, the Electronic Frontier Foundation
 (EFF) won RSA's DES Challenge II-2 when it cracked the
 DES message in 56 hours.
 
 http://www.rsa.com/pressbox/html/990119-1.html
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-  -.-. --.-
 - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.-
 edited by Harkank
 published on: 1999-01-19
 comments to office@quintessenz.at
 subscribe Newsletter
 - -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.- -.-. --.-
 <<  
                   ^ 
                    >>
 |  |  |  |