Certicom Announces Elliptic Curve Cryptography Challenge Winner

Tue Apr 27 09:44:43 EDT 2004

<http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=SVBIZINK3.story&STORY=/www/story/04-27-2004/0002160357&EDATE=TUE+Apr+27+2004,+07:08+AM>


Silicon Valley Biz Ink :: The voice of the valley economy


        April 27, 2004


Computers/Electronics News

Press release distributed
by PR Newswire

 Certicom Announces Elliptic Curve Cryptography Challenge Winner

 < back


    Solution required team of mathematicians, 2600 computers and 17 months

    MISSISSAUGA, ON, April 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Certicom Corp.
(TSX: CIC), the authority for strong, efficient cryptography, today announced
that Chris Monico, an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, and his
team of mathematicians have successfully solved the Certicom Elliptic Curve
Cryptography (ECC)2-109 Challenge. The effort required 2600 computers and took
17 months. For comparison purposes, the gross CPU time used would be roughly
equivalent to that of an Athlon XP 3200+ working nonstop for about 1200 years.
    Monico also led the team that won the ECCp-109 Certicom challenge in
2002. Although the same key length, this challenge was solved over a field of
characteristic 2 rather than a prime field.
    For those people concerned about data security, this announcement is good
news. The key solved in this challenge is well below the strength of
commercial standards used by Certicom and many others today, which is ECC 163
or higher. In fact, it would be approximately one hundred million times harder
to solve ECC 163.
    Why participate in the challenge? "I think public-key cryptography based
on ECC is what we should and will be moving toward," said Monico. "And
besides, the fact that this is likely the last of the ECC challenges to be
solved in the next few years was a big motivator. The only way to get at the
130-bit level challenges are by a combination of Moore's law (wait around for
computers to get faster) and gathering more computers. Personally, I think
it's unlikely to happen soon." In addition to the professional incentives,
Monico and his team will receive a US $10,000 prize for solving the challenge.
    Certicom introduced the ECC Challenge in November 1997. It was developed
to increase industry understanding and appreciation for the difficulty of the
elliptic curve discrete logarithm problem, and to encourage and stimulate
further research in the security analysis of elliptic curve cryptosystems.
    There are three challenge levels: Exercises; Level I, comprising 109-bit
and 131-bit challenges; and Level II comprising 163-bit, 191-bit and 359-bit
challenges. The Exercises and the 109-bit challenges are considered feasible
and could be solved in a matter of months, while the 131-bit challenges would
require significantly more resources to solve as they are 2000 times more
difficult than the 109-bit challenges. All Level II challenges are believed to
be computationally infeasible.
    "I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Chris Monico and
his team for the great effort. It is our hope that the knowledge and
experience gained from the challenge will help show how difficult it is to
break an ECC key, even at a relatively small bit length," said Dr. Scott
Vanstone, founder and executive vice-president, strategic technology at
Certicom. "ECC is considered a next generation public-key technology that is
here today. The NSA demonstrated their trust in the strength of these systems
when recently they licensed some of our ECC technology to secure mission
critical information."
    Certicom is a pioneer in researching and developing ECC. It is a
computationally efficient form of cryptography that offers equivalent security
to other competing public-key technologies but with much smaller key sizes.
Because of its efficient size, it is especially well suited for mobile
devices, mobile middleware, and industrial equipment requiring long battery
life. It's even used in digital postage marks.
    In 1997, Certicom developed the industry's first toolkit to include ECC
which has since been adopted by over 300 organizations. Security Builder
Crypto, a cross-platform cryptographic toolkit, includes standards-based ECC
implementations that are optimized for size and performance on over 30
platforms. Through its Intellectual Property Licensing Program, Certicom
provides licenses to organizations that have implemented or want to implement
the technologies covered in Certicom's extensive patent portfolio.

    About Certicom
    Certicom Corp. (TSX:CIC) is the authority for strong, efficient
cryptography required by software vendors and device manufacturers to embed
security in their products. Adopted by the US Government's National Security
Agency (NSA), Certicom technologies for Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC)
provide the most security per bit of any known public key scheme, making it
ideal for constrained environments. Certicom products and services are
currently licensed to more than 300 customers including Motorola, Oracle,
Research In Motion, Terayon, Texas Instruments and XM Radio. Founded in 1985,
Certicom is headquartered in Mississauga, ON, Canada, with offices in Ottawa,
ON; Reston, VA; San Mateo, CA; and London, England. Visit
http://www.certicom.com.

    Certicom, Security Builder, Security Builder Crypto, Security Builder
    SSL, Security Builder PKI, Security Builder GSE, movianVPN, movianCrypt
    and movianMail are trademarks or registered trademarks of Certicom Corp.
    All other companies and products listed herein are trademarks or
    registered trademarks of their respective holders.

    Except for historical information contained herein, this news release
contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.
Actual results may differ materially. Factors that might cause a difference
include, but are not limited to, those relating to the acceptance of mobile
and wireless devices and the continued growth of e-commerce and m-commerce,
the increase of the demand for mutual authentication in m-commerce
transactions, the acceptance of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) technology
as an industry standard, the market acceptance of our principal products and
sales of our customer's products, the impact of competitive products and
technologies, the possibility of our products infringing patents and other
intellectual property of fourth parties, and costs of product development.
Certicom will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or
circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential
factors that could affect Certicom's financial results is included in the
documents Certicom files from time to time with the Canadian securities
regulatory authorities.


-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at metzdowd.com