Schneier on Bernstein factoring machine

Derek Atkins derek at ihtfp.com
Tue Apr 16 17:47:49 EDT 2002


Anonymous <nobody at remailer.privacy.at> writes:

> Bruce Schneier writes in the April 15, 2002, CRYPTO-GRAM,
> http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0204.html:
> 
> > But there's no reason to panic, or to dump existing systems.  I don't think 
> > Bernstein's announcement has changed anything.  Businesses today could 
> > reasonably be content with their 1024-bit keys, and military institutions 
> > and those paranoid enough to fear from them should have upgraded years ago.
> >
> > To me, the big news in Lucky Green's announcement is not that he believes 
> > that Bernstein's research is sufficiently worrisome as to warrant revoking 
> > his 1024-bit keys; it's that, in 2002, he still has 1024-bit keys to revoke.
> 
> Does anyone else notice the contradiction in these two paragraphs?
> First Bruce says that businesses can reasonably be content with 1024 bit
> keys, then he appears shocked that Lucky Green still has a 1024 bit key?
> Why is it so awful for Lucky to "still" have a key of this size, if 1024
> bit keys are good enough to be "reasonably content" about?

I see no contradiction at all.  Bruce believe that Lucky is one of
"those paranoid enough" that "should have upgraded years ago".  In
other words, Bruce is surprised that Lucky didn't already upgrade to a
key larger than 1024 bits, due to his "paranoia".

No offense meant, Lucky...

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant
       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com

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