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> The NSA doesn't break real crypto any more, they just find or make software bugs. They still can, and do break crypto. The Snowden papers (IIRC) mentioned th
by sangnoir 5y ago
> The NSA doesn't break real crypto any more, they just find or make software bugs.
They still can, and do break crypto. The Snowden papers (IIRC) mentioned that NSA factored a bunch of primes by throwing ridiculous amounts of compute at it: billions of dollars.
With that,they could break schemes with no forward secrecy at their leisure (from all the historical internet traffic they had gathered), and they could decrypt ~30% of all "secure" internet connections in real time at the time,IIRC
- marcan_42 5y agoYou're describing the Diffie-Hellman story I mentioned (in a somewhat confusing way; forward secrecy isn't involved here, this isn't about breaking RSA TLS keys, and in fact DH is used in connections with forward secrecy). Again, that only works for 1024 bit DH schemes. The NSA can't factor 2048 bit keys, and they definitely can't factor 4096 bit keys. These aren't unknown capabilities; it's pretty easy to get an order of magnitude estimate on how much compute power the NSA has (spoiler alert: Google has more).
- sroussey 5y agoAnd vulnerabilities are constantly discovered, so they can go back to the recorded internet and break it.
- Y_Y 5y agoThat's easy when you know the secret. Give me any prime, as big as you like, and I'll factor it for you right now.