RE: VPN Glossary On Line!

["Kurt Buff" <kurtbuff () lightmail com>]

I would guess that the relationship of the annual solar limit (total annual
energy output of the sun?) to cryptography would be that one can peg an
energy cost for each computer instruction. One can then calculate in a rough
way the capacity of a theoretical computing unit whose energy source is the
sun. Seems like a fairly arbitrary measure, but then, in science, most are.

| -----Original Message-----
| From: owner-firewall-wizards () lists nfr net
| [mailto:owner-firewall-wizards () lists nfr net]On Behalf Of Tina Bird
| Sent: Monday, 10 January, 2000 19:14
| To: Moore, James
| Cc: firewall-wizards () nfr net
| Subject: RE: VPN Glossary On Line!
|
|
| The yearly energy output of the sun is a unit in common use
| in astrophysics (never mind the solar-system-centric point of view).
|
| For instance when I was still an astrophysicist, I would
| discuss clusters of galaxies in terms of their luminosity,
| usually calibrated to solar luminosity.  Leads to ridiculously
| large numbers.
|
| I am not personally aware of anyone other than Rick using the
| term as a benchmark for brute force attacks.  But people do frequently
| refer to the length of time to search a particular key space in
| terms of multiples of the age of the universe, so it's not much
| of a stretch.
|
| On Mon, 10 Jan 2000, Moore, James wrote:
|
| > Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 10:39:54 -0600
| > From: "Moore, James" <James.Moore () MSFC NASA GOV>
| > To: Tina Bird <tbird () precision-guesswork com>,
| firewall-wizards () nfr net
| > Subject: RE: VPN Glossary On Line!
| >
| > Just outta' curiosity: Do you have any references (other
| than Smith's book)
| > on the term "annual solar limit", and how that applies to
| brute-force key
| > searches?
| >
| > Jim Moore
| > 256.461.4381
| >
| > ----------- PGP PUBLIC KEY FINGERPRINT ------------
| > 1D9C 3AC3 34E6 EEDF 22B9  7886 7797 6908 048F 049B
| > ---------------------------------------------------
|