"R. Steve Walz" wrote:

Fred Abse wrote:

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 05:55:38 +0100, L'acrobat wrote:

As has already been shown, RSA isn't uncrackable

It was cracked by brute force but only on a 64-bit key.

That was done by literally thousands of machines around the world,
collaborating, using spare processor time (mine was one).

331,252 individuals participated (some were using multiple machines).

15,769,938,165,961,326,592 keys were tested

It took 1757 days.

Some guy in Japan is one happy bunny. He got the ten thousand buck prize
from RSA Labs for the correct key.

2048 bit keys are a little more difficult :-)
------------------------
We're talking life of the universe now using more computers than the
number of atoms in the big bang!

-Steve
--


There were atoms in the Big Bang?
That should come as a surprise to science!

Dave