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So, no? Brute forcing the strongest forms of modern crypto theoretically would take unfathomably amounts of energy and/or time. It's not a matter of bigger dat

by deelowe 11y ago

So, no? Brute forcing the strongest forms of modern crypto theoretically would take unfathomably amounts of energy and/or time. It's not a matter of bigger datacenters or faster hardware. Without discovering a flaw (which we have no evidence of) or inventing completely different computing paradigms (which don't exist) there's no reason to believe this is possible today. Sure, some cryptography is weak and it's well documented. Others, well, we'd need a Dyson sphere to brute force...

noir_lord 11y ago
> Others, well, we'd need a Dyson sphere to brute force... Not that I'm disagreeing with you but the German High Command thought much the same about the Enigma. The only rational response in the face of the Snowden leaks is to assume everything is compromised and either defend in depth or simply not commit it to a computer (under the assumption what you are keeping private is that important). If I was a high end cryptographer or someone in that sphere I'd also likely be (if they aren't already) be using an air gapped machine, the threat is that pernicious.
- deelowe 11y ago
  Snowden has stated that he doesn't think modern encryption algorithms have been compromised.
  - noir_lord 11y ago
    Which is reassuring but not absolute, if the NSA did have the ability to break that stuff the strategic advantage would be so high it might be classified at an entirely different level. It is of course impossible to say without evidence.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  As usual, with Enigma the human operators were the weak link. If they had used Enigma properly, it probably could not have been broken before the end of the war.
exelius 11y ago
The only safe assumption is that the NSA knows how to break modern crypto. Otherwise, you're taking a risk every time you encrypt something you don't want them looking at. And if the NSA found a flaw in a crypto algorithm, do you really think they would leave evidence of that anywhere? You're talking about an organization that basically invented the entire idea of OpSec...

by deelowe 11y ago

noir_lord 11y ago

> Others, well, we'd need a Dyson sphere to brute force... Not that I'm disagreeing with you but the German High Command thought much the same about the Enigma. The only rational response in the face of the Snowden leaks is to assume everything is compromised and either defend in depth or simply not commit it to a computer (under the assumption what you are keeping private is that important). If I was a high end cryptographer or someone in that sphere I'd also likely be (if they aren't already) be using an air gapped machine, the threat is that pernicious.

deelowe 11y ago
Snowden has stated that he doesn't think modern encryption algorithms have been compromised.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  Which is reassuring but not absolute, if the NSA did have the ability to break that stuff the strategic advantage would be so high it might be classified at an entirely different level. It is of course impossible to say without evidence.
CamperBob2 11y ago
As usual, with Enigma the human operators were the weak link. If they had used Enigma properly, it probably could not have been broken before the end of the war.

exelius 11y ago

The only safe assumption is that the NSA knows how to break modern crypto. Otherwise, you're taking a risk every time you encrypt something you don't want them looking at. And if the NSA found a flaw in a crypto algorithm, do you really think they would leave evidence of that anywhere? You're talking about an organization that basically invented the entire idea of OpSec...