Re: A secure, trustworthy Win XP compitable encryption program with GUI interface?

From: MacGregor K. Phillips (mkp_at_topsecretcrypto.com)
Date: 03/03/04 

Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2004 09:21:53 +0800

"Benjamin Choi" <nospam@technosoft21.com> wrote in message
news:7eeb3109.0403020457.68c83d77@posting.google.com...
> "MacGregor K. Phillips" <mkp@topsecretcrypto.com> wrote in message
news:<c20q1d$1m0v90$1@ID-201989.news.uni-berlin.de>...
> > Read the documentation. I recommend face to face exchange.
>
> It doesn't say anything about difficulty of factoring 16kbit RSA. The
> only reference which suggests that 128-bit symmetric encryption is
> broken is
>
> "Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy - © 1998 - paperback edition pages 436 and
> 437. Here Tom Clancy writes that the NSA, with the application of
> quantum theory to communications security can decipher codes with 128
> bit keys, and it appears from his writing that it hardly takes any
> time at all. The conventional key used by PGPT is only 128 bits. Does
> Tom Clancy know something we do not, and has he incorporated this
> knowledge into his novel?"
>
> Which is clearly fiction... besides, doesn't recent versions of PGP
> allow for 256-bit keys (AES and Twofish algorithms in addition to the
> 100+ bit key algorithms CAST (128-bit), IDEA (128-bit), 3DES
> (112-bit)).

Yes, they do. When I wrote the above I was not aware of the newer versions
because I did not have access to the Internet back then. Perhaps it is time
to update these remarks.

>
> "The Optiset E privacy module offered by Siemens AG for voice
> encryption over the telephone "uses one of 10 to the 38th power keys
> for each call" which works out to only a 128 bit key. 2 to the 128th
> power equals 3.4028 times 10 to the 38th power. Do you think the NSA
> can break this one too?"
>
> Why do you think the NSA can break this one too besides the references
> I quoted above?

No one actually knows what the NSA is capable of. These are more in the form
of rhetorical questions to get people to think, and maybe do a little bit of
research on the subject themselves.

MacGregor K. Phillips