AES HDD encryption was XOR

[Victor Duchovni]

On Mon, Dec 08, 2008 at 08:53:18PM -0800, Jon Callas wrote:

> >In the NBC TV episode of /Chuck/ a couple of weeks ago, the NSA  
> >cracked
> >"a 512-bit AES cipher" on a flash drive "trying every possible key".
> >"Could be hours, could be days."  (Only minutes in TV land.)
> >
> >http://www.nbc.com/Chuck/video/episodes/#vid=838461
> >(Chuck Versus The Fat Lady, 4th segment, at 26:19)
> >
> >It's no wonder that folks are deluded, pop culture reinforces this.
> 
> No, this is simple to do.
> 
> What you is to start with a basic cracking engine. And then you add  
> another one an hour later, and then an hour later add two, then add  
> four the next hour and so on.
> 
> If you assume that the first cracker can do 2^40 keys per second, then  
> you're guaranteed to complete in 472 hours, which is only 20 days. And  
> of course there's always the chance you'd do it in the first hour.
> 
> For those who doubt being able to double the cracking power, Moore's  
> law proves this is possible.

In the well-known Indian fable, the King was bankrupted by doubling grains
of rice on a 64-square chess-board. Back in the USSR, every school-child
learned this fable. Oh, and chess was pretty popular too...

The fact that the fable refutes the *sustainability* of Moore's "law"
seems to be under-appreciated on this side of the Iron-curtain. It is
not a question of whether, but rather when the departure from Moore's
"law" will take place.

The computing power of the microprocessor is still under 32 powers of
2 from its inception, naive extrapolation to the next 32 powers of 2
is unwise.

-- 
	Viktor.

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