2048-bit RSA keys

[Bill Stewart]

At 01:54 PM 8/16/2010, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>On Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:42:41 -0700 Paul Hoffman
><paul.hoffman at vpnc.org> wrote:
> > At 11:35 AM +1000 8/16/10, Arash Partow wrote:
> > >Just out of curiosity, assuming the optimal use of today's best of
> > >breed factoring algorithms - will there be enough energy in our
> > >solar system to factorize a 2048-bit RSA integer?
> >
> > We have no idea. The methods used to factor number continue to
> > slowly get better,[...]
>
>He asked about "today's best of breed algorithms", not future ones. In
>that context, and assuming today's most energy efficient processors
>rather than theoretical future processors, the question has a concrete
>answer.

With today's best-of-breed algorithms and hardware designs,
there isn't enough money in the economy to build a machine
that comes close to making a scratch in the surface of
that kind of energy consumption, whether for factoring or
for simple destruction.

Basically, 2048's safe with current hardware
until we get some radical breakthrough
like P==NP or useful quantum computers,
and if we develop hardware radical enough to
use a significant fraction of the solar output,
we'll probably find it much easier to eavesdrop
on the computers we're trying to attack than to
crack the crypto.

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