4 ms·

Encrypt the data with a key long enough that, by Moore's law, you'd expect computers to be able to break it in 50 years. Submit the data to Wikileaks. Destroy t

Encrypt the data with a key long enough that, by Moore's law, you'd expect computers to be able to break it in 50 years. Submit the data to Wikileaks. Destroy the key.

rmc 16y ago
Modern encryption systems do not fall out of use because computers get faster, it's because new mathematical attacks to the underlying encryption are found, and this makes brute forcing it easier than people thought at the time. In other words, the reason we don't use (say) the MD5 hash system is not because computers are able to break the 32-bit hash system, but because people have discovered flaws in the MD5 algorithm that means it doesn't give '32 bits of strength'. In this case it's not the hardware (CPU clock speed) that gets better, but the software (programmes that break MD5) that gets better. Hence, you could use Moore's Law to predict what computers in 50 years time will be like, but you can't know what mathematical techniques will be like in 10 yet alone 50 years. Your encryption system you use might get broken in 10 years time.
- philh 16y ago
  DES is arguably an exception to that. Twenty years after the standard was published, the EFF published designs for a machine that could brute-force a DES key in a matter of days. But even when it was published, people were saying a 56-bit key was too small, which they aren't saying of modern cryptosystems (to my knowledge). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard
  - rmc 16y ago
    Yes OK, a small key size makes brute force more likely. Bruce Schneier wrote about how it's not possible to brute for 256-bit keys. Short section here http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html#snakeoil http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html#snakeoil , there's a longer explaination saying you can't even flip all the bits in 256-bit key before the universe expires, but I can't find that at the moment. So once you hit a upper limit (256-bits), you can't brute force anything ever, so faster computers are useless. Algorithms like that get broken by new maths, which could happen at any time, you can't predict it, so you can't rely on it.
wwortiz 16y ago
If your doing it along those lines a better solution would be to encrypt the data with something that you don't expect to be broken in 50 years and store the key on sealed paper, or whatever should last 50 years, in a time capsule for that time.

Encrypt the data with a key long enough that, by Moore's law, you'd expect computers to be able to break it in 50 years. Submit the data to Wikileaks. Destroy the key.

rmc 16y ago

Modern encryption systems do not fall out of use because computers get faster, it's because new mathematical attacks to the underlying encryption are found, and this makes brute forcing it easier than people thought at the time. In other words, the reason we don't use (say) the MD5 hash system is not because computers are able to break the 32-bit hash system, but because people have discovered flaws in the MD5 algorithm that means it doesn't give '32 bits of strength'. In this case it's not the hardware (CPU clock speed) that gets better, but the software (programmes that break MD5) that gets better. Hence, you could use Moore's Law to predict what computers in 50 years time will be like, but you can't know what mathematical techniques will be like in 10 yet alone 50 years. Your encryption system you use might get broken in 10 years time.

philh 16y ago
DES is arguably an exception to that. Twenty years after the standard was published, the EFF published designs for a machine that could brute-force a DES key in a matter of days. But even when it was published, people were saying a 56-bit key was too small, which they aren't saying of modern cryptosystems (to my knowledge). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard
- rmc 16y ago
  Yes OK, a small key size makes brute force more likely. Bruce Schneier wrote about how it's not possible to brute for 256-bit keys. Short section here http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html#snakeoil http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9902.html#snakeoil , there's a longer explaination saying you can't even flip all the bits in 256-bit key before the universe expires, but I can't find that at the moment. So once you hit a upper limit (256-bits), you can't brute force anything ever, so faster computers are useless. Algorithms like that get broken by new maths, which could happen at any time, you can't predict it, so you can't rely on it.

wwortiz 16y ago

If your doing it along those lines a better solution would be to encrypt the data with something that you don't expect to be broken in 50 years and store the key on sealed paper, or whatever should last 50 years, in a time capsule for that time.