RSA founders give perspective on cryptography

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://www.computerworld.com.au/pp.php?id=1406778897&fp=16&fpid=0>

Wednesday, 12th May 2004


Computerworld - The Voice of IT Management


RSA founders give perspective on cryptography

M.E. Kabay, Network World

11/05/2004 08:43:53

The famous cryptographers Leonard Adleman, Ronald Rivest, and Adi Shamir -
the developers of the RSA encryption code - received the Association for
Computing Machinery's 2002 Turing Award "for their seminal contributions to
the theory and practical application of public-key cryptography." Their
Turing Award lectures, given last June, are available online.

 Rivest, Shamir and Adleman implemented public-key cryptography in the
1970s following the landmark work of Whitfield Diffie, Martin Hellman and
Ralph Merkle. They then founded RSA Security, which became one of the most
respected security companies in the world.

 RSA organizes the immensely valuable annual RSA Conferences, perhaps the
most significant security conference of the year now that the National
Computer Security Center and the National Institute of Standards and
Technology have stopped their late lamented National Computer Security
Conferences.

 While I'm mentioning RSA, I should remind readers that its FAQ is an
excellent source of information about cryptography.

 The distinguished scientists' lectures are available online in a variety
of formats at:
http://www.acm.org/awards/turing_citations/rivest-shamir-adleman.html?code=nlsec121


Adleman started the event with a brief historical overview of three major
areas of study that led to the public-key cryptosystem (PKC): number
theory, the study of computational complexity, and cryptology.

 Next, Rivest reviewed the events around the invention of the RSA PKC. They
hit on the idea of depending on the difficulty of factoring as the basis
for a public/private key cryptosystem, where one key would be public, the
other private, and each key would decrypt what the other key encrypted.
Martin Gardner of _Scientific American_ helped them by publishing an
article with a US$100 challenge for factoring a 129-digit product of two
large primes (RSA-129). They estimated that factoring this number would
take 40 quadrillion years. But the RSA-129 challenge was finally factored
using thousands of cooperating computers via the Internet 10 years ago, and
a ciphertext was decrypted as, "The magic words are squeamish ossifrage."

 Finally, Shamir reviewed the current state of cryptography. Despite
initial fears among the law enforcement community that encryption would
lead to serious impediments for investigations and anti-terrorism work,
reports from the US Department of Justice show that no federal wiretaps
encountered encryption in 2002. In state and local jurisdictions,
investigators encountered encryption in 16 wiretaps out of approximately
1,300 cases; however, in none of these cases did encryption interfere with
the ability of the investigators to gather the evidence needed for
prosecution.

 Shamir pointed out that cryptography is central to today's technology. One
of the most important benefits of cryptography is the constant interaction
of theory and practice; for example, abstract mathematical tools have been
productively applied to cryptanalysis. Similarly, well-established
practical concepts such as basic notions of security, complexity, logic and
randomness have stimulated much theoretical creativity.

 Shamir formulated three laws of security. First, "Absolutely secure
systems do not exist." We have to accept that we should implement systems
that are secure enough. For example, postage stamps are a ridiculous
security measure, but they work for millions of people around the world.
Vending machines where you put in a coin and choose one newspaper out of
the pile available are weak security systems, but they're good enough.

 The second law is, "To halve your vulnerability, you have to double your
expenditure." This law implies that improvements in security become less
and les cost-effective the further one goes in improving one's systems.

 Finally, "Cryptography is typically bypassed, not penetrated." He said he
is unaware of any major, world-class security failure in which hackers
penetrated systems by using heavy-duty cryptanalysis. They usually use much
easier methods.

 The last part of Shamir's presentation is a review of six major areas of
today's cryptography: theory; public-key encryption and signature schemes;
secret-key cryptography using block ciphers; secret-key cryptography using
stream ciphers; theoretical cryptographic protocols; and practical
cryptographic protocols.

 He predicted that:

	* 	AES will remain secure for the foreseeable future.

	* 	 Some public-key schemes and key sizes will be successfully
attacked in the next few years.

	* 	 Cryptography will be invisibly everywhere.

	* 	 Vulnerabilities will be visibly everywhere.

	* 	 Crypto research will remain vigorous, but only its simplest
ideas will become practically useful.

	* 	 Non-crypto security will remain a mess.

 It was exhilarating to listen to these brilliant people speaking to us,
and I hope some of you will have an hour to spare to enjoy their lectures.

-- 
-----------------
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'

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