Path: tera.mcom.com!news-mail-gateway From: markm@voicenet.com (Mark M.) Newsgroups: mcom.list.cypherpunks Subject: Re: Layman's explanation for limits on escrowed encryption ... Date: 27 May 1996 18:19:51 -0700 Organization: Local Mail/News Gateway Lines: 51 Sender: daemon@tera.mcom.com Approved: usenet@netscape.com Message-ID: References: <01I53K6SDN348Y4Z90@mbcl.rutgers.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: tera.mcom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="axb+h+IbI/zv+u"; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; micalg=pgp-md5 This message is in PGP/MIME format, according to the Internet Draft draft-elkins-pem-pgp-03.txt. For more information, see: http://www.c2.org/‾raph/pgpmime.html (Actually, trailing whitespace is not treated specially, so it is a proposal that may be adopted in the 04 draft.) --axb+h+IbI/zv+u Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Fri, 24 May 1996, E. ALLEN SMITH wrote: > =09Hmm.... what were the normal key-length recommendations again? This > appears to imply that the NSA can break at least 64-bit, and probably 80-= bit, > encryption. How does this translate into public key lengths? E.g., how ma= ny > normal bits is a 1024-bit PGP key equivalent to? > =09-Allen The normal key-length recommendation was 96 bits. 64 bits and 80 bits are equivalent to 512 bits and 768 bits respectively. I would guess that a 1024-bit key is about as strong as an 96-bit key. The first two numbers are from _Applied Cryptography_; my estimate is an extrapolation from the data = in AC. -- Mark =3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D= -=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D-=3D markm@voicenet.com | finger -l for PGP key 0xe3bf2169 http://www.voicenet.com/‾markm/ | d61734f2800486ae6f79bfeb70f95348 ((2b) || !(2b)) | Old key now used only for signatures "The concept of normalcy is just a conspiracy of the majority" -me --axb+h+IbI/zv+u Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP MESSAGE----- Version: 2.6.3 iQCVAwUBMapL+LZc+sv5siulAQGbpwQAoP7X0GCvZeG1F50uv4xQkGXb0SH/gD6P LHQPb+DfdazDsHi7Ru7mbYR3yUO+hrnR8tjQiAoMN/8Efu0ISsIcaGRekD4Bp04u JEPFZo6LznUyFj23XlJ7VhCjQnRNlCaAslMFHx5EeI/GWevYABf4zDhwCJeN4Lp5 vT6L9N214G0= =zkS8 -----END PGP MESSAGE----- --axb+h+IbI/zv+u--