4 ms·

On top of that, I don't remember the specific assumptions but my Crypto professor proved that just to increment a counter to 2^256 would take more energy than e

by czinck 10y ago

On top of that, I don't remember the specific assumptions but my Crypto professor proved that just to increment a counter to 2^256 would take more energy than exists in the observable universe. I think also everyone is pretty sure quantum computing won't break AES, but maybe there's some weakness in the S/P boxes that quantum computers can exploit, who knows. That's the fun in crypto, you can't prove that anything other than OTP is unbreakable.

ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago
> On top of that, I don't remember the specific assumptions but my Crypto professor proved that just to increment a counter to 2^256 would take more energy than exists in the observable universe. This proof is present in Schneier's "Applied Cryptography" if someone wants source.
dom0 10y ago
> On top of that, I don't remember the specific assumptions but my Crypto professor proved that just to increment a counter to 2^256 would take more energy than exists in the observable universe. Well, depending on the theory the universe isn't even supposed to have any net sum, but regardless: even at the Landauer limit (at room temperature; it scales linearly to absolute temp) it would take an awful lot of energy to do the computation non-reversibly, about: 2**256 * 256 * 2.5 zJ ~ 8e+58 J Which is about 38 orders of magnitude greater than the total energy use of the world (~3.75e+11 GWs). And any computer built so far is still far, far away from the Landauer limit. There is also Bremermann's limit which is an intrinsic limit on the processing speed per mass. Eg. a machine that traverses a 256 bit key space in 15 years with one one bit operation per traversed key must weight at least ~1.8e+21 grams, which would be quite a chunk of machinery. This just goes to show that brute-forcing 256 bits is simply not going to happen with any civilization that isn't able to harness the power of at least one star. That doesn't say anything about cryptanalysis, though. I think with an algorithm like AES, which has been analysed a great many times, that it's becoming less likely that there is a cryptanalytic breakthrough. It might be the case that AES will remain secure throughout the information age.

by czinck 10y ago

ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago

dom0 10y ago

> On top of that, I don't remember the specific assumptions but my Crypto professor proved that just to increment a counter to 2^256 would take more energy than exists in the observable universe. Well, depending on the theory the universe isn't even supposed to have any net sum, but regardless: even at the Landauer limit (at room temperature; it scales linearly to absolute temp) it would take an awful lot of energy to do the computation non-reversibly, about: 2**256 * 256 * 2.5 zJ ~ 8e+58 J Which is about 38 orders of magnitude greater than the total energy use of the world (~3.75e+11 GWs). And any computer built so far is still far, far away from the Landauer limit. There is also Bremermann's limit which is an intrinsic limit on the processing speed per mass. Eg. a machine that traverses a 256 bit key space in 15 years with one one bit operation per traversed key must weight at least ~1.8e+21 grams, which would be quite a chunk of machinery. This just goes to show that brute-forcing 256 bits is simply not going to happen with any civilization that isn't able to harness the power of at least one star. That doesn't say anything about cryptanalysis, though. I think with an algorithm like AES, which has been analysed a great many times, that it's becoming less likely that there is a cryptanalytic breakthrough. It might be the case that AES will remain secure throughout the information age.