I wonder about the practical effect of this in the Real World(tm). When cryptographers talk about a "break," they mean anything faster than brute force search.

I wonder about the practical effect of this in the Real World(tm). When cryptographers talk about a "break," they mean anything faster than brute force search. So a break of a 128-bit algorithm that allows key recovery in 2^115 is a "break," but still completely impractical. But as Bruce Schnier says: "attacks only get better." So a break is a good reason to look for a fix or a better algorithm now before the crack widens.