Can you keep a secret? This encrypted drive can...

[Derek Atkins]

Quoting "Leichter, Jerry" <leichter_jerrold at emc.com>:

> | ...Compusec is great for home / personal use. It is cheap i.e. $0.00
> | (Free), and does not slow down the computer as much as the other
> | products. But that is because it only support 128 bit AES, which is a
> | major drawback as most enterprise settings require at least 256 bit
> | AES....
> Just wondering about this little piece.  How did we get to 256-bit
> AES as a requirement?  Just what threat out there justifies it?
> There's no conceivable brute-force attack against 128-bit AES as far
> out as we can see, so we're presumably begin paranoid about an analytic
> attack.  But is there even the hint of an analytic attack against AES
> that would (a) provide a practical way in to AES-128; (b) would not
> provide a practical way into AES-256?  What little I've seen in the
> way of proposed attacks on AES all go after the algebraic structure
> (with no real success), and that structure is the same in both
> AES-128 and AES-256.

It's a management requirement.  The manager sees "AES128" and "AES256"
and thinks "256 must be better than 128" and therefore the edict comes
down that AES256 must be used.  It's not a technical decision.  It's
not a decision made by analyzing the threats.  It's made purely
by assertion, but it's a decision that can't easily be refuted.

> 							-- Jerry

-derek
-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available


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