How thorough are the hash breaks, anyway?

[Matt Crawford]

>> certificates.  The public key data is public, and it's a "random"
>> bitpattern where nobody would ever notice a few different bits.
>> If someone finds a collision for microsoft's windows update cert (or a
>> number of other possibilities), and the fan is well and truly buried
>> in it.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong ... but once finding
> a hash collision on a public key, you'd also
> need to find a matching private key, right?

But the odds are that you'd get an easy-to-factor modulus.  Would the 
casual relying party ever notice that?  I think not.

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