[Cryptography] But it's encrypted so it must be OK

[Peter Gutmann]

Ray Dillinger <bear at sonic.net> writes:

>"It was secure forty years ago, so it must still be working" is a normal
>thing to think

I'm not actually sure that much thought went into it, it's more a case of
"this is the same way we've always done it".  Version n+1 takes over the
settings from version n for all values of n and everything appears to function
as before.

Having said that, I'm also not sure that anyone would bother attacking even
40-bit RC2 when you can just buy stolen credentials by the gigabyte while an
40-bit RC2 crack gets you just one message at a time.

Peter.