IP: Re: Record encryption puzzle crack

[David Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

> Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2000 09:44:40 -0700
> From: Lars Poulsen <lpoulsen () ucwireless com>
> X-Accept-Language: en
> To: farber () cis upenn edu
> Subject: Re: IP: Record encryption puzzle crack
>
>  > An international team of researchers -- led by crypto researcher
> >  Robert Harley of the French National Institute for Research in
> >  Computer Science and Control, or INRIA -- and other computer
> >  enthusiasts found the 108-bit key to a scrambled message after four
> >  months of number crunching by 9,500 computers worldwide.
>
> The headline seems very misleading; a better summary would be:
>
> "New mobile encryption system validated: Took four months to decode"
>
> "A french research team wanted to see just how secure the new
> encryption system for mobile telephones would be, and enlisted
> a team of 9,500 volunteers and their computers all over the world,
> to try to decode a sample message encrypted by the new system
> in the obvious way: Try every key combination. Despite the unprecedented
>
> resources allocated, it took four months to find a key that worked.
> There have been no reports so far that anyone has discovered a
> shortcut to breaking the code, so it must be expected that this
> amount of effort is representative."
>
> One wonders whether the misleading spin of the published story was
> intentional or due to the ignaroance of the reporter.