Encryption.

[Lazarus]

seems like a 9 year old encryption method has just been cracked by 3 Chinese :

http://www.techworld.com/security/features/index.cfm?featureid=1213

 

[sibanac]

the article over hipes the whole thing.
Its a hashing algoritm meaning there will always be collisions.
They proved that collisions can happen 1/2^69 instead of 1/2^80.
It weakens the hash alot but it still takes alot of effort to do so.

 

[TdC]

indeed, though the diff between ^69 and ^80 is huge, 0 to ^69 is huger. I wouldn't be really off my head about this, though it is a shame imo.

just to put things in perspective:

"The best attack anyone has ever done (on current encryption) was the distributed attack on MD5-RC64, which took 300,000 computers - and it took them five years," Callas says. "(Breaking SHA-1) is 16 times harder than that; it'd take those same 300,000 computers roughly 74 years."

this basically means they can't leech your pr0n flow off your VPN link in real time. in tdc's world there is nothing that can't be hacked, duped or otherwise circumvented in some way. the question is if one is willing to put in the effort to get at something or not. besides that, our current top-of-the-range ultra secure policies/kit/algorithems/etc that are *very* hard to beat will be looked on as quaint and naieve in the years to come, I kid you not

 

[Jonty]

"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."

hehe

 

[Jonty]

To pick up on TdC's point, there will always be ways around security measures. Alright, we may be unable to decipher MSN conversations with 4096bit encryption, hehe, but if the same people speak over the phone, say, it's very easy to intercept such things. Systems such as ECHELON have long taken advantage of this fact (3 billion+ global intercepts everyday ...). As for older encryption methods, there are already systems with several thousand processors designed to brute force crack simple encryption, and these will only get better with the advancement of hardware.

Sobering, but ultimately we'd never leave the house if we let it trouble us

Kind Regards

 

[Ukle]

This is sort of old news it was on Slashdot last week. To sum up the comments on there the algorithm that has been partialy cracked is only really intended to be used in digital signatures. Also given that it is only decreasing the time required to do a brute force attack it will have minimal impact.

 

[Vae]

As mentioned this is in use in digital signatures and thus the collision occurs when there's 2 signatures which 'hash' (i.e. are run through the algorithm) and come out with the same answer meaning there could be two signatures giving the same hash and thus reducing the reliability of the digital signature you are relying on.

 

[Chilly]

theres no way youd ever need ^69 hashes tho

 

[Catsby]

Catsby believes that "The Man" is cabable of anything, like watcing you pee, using his high resolution x-ray satelite.

Catsby also thinks "The Man" is a pervert.

 

[Tom]

I have no idea what any of this means.

 

[Alliandre]

I have no idea what any of this means.

I think they basically mean it doesn't really make to much difference, as it still needs alot of effort to do what the three researchers did, and you've got no privacy anyway..