Long Key Performance

[Anonymous]

Werner Koch wrote:
>On Sat, 20 Apr 2002 08:06:36 +0800, Enzo Michelangeli said:
>> Well, you may be right, but why not let the users make their own decision?
>> Anonymous appears to have a point.
>
>He can do so up to a certain size.  Going over this needs changes to
>the RNG mdoule.

Okay, so there is some reason, sort of, not to do this.

>It is better to think about an entire system and not just about one
>detail (length of the key).

Details are important, at least in aggregate.

>On Fri, 19 Apr 2002 11:08 -0700, Anonymous  said:
>> You seem to be arguing that because you personally don't want to buy
>> faster hardware, everybody else on the planet should not be permitted
>> to use key lengths of their choosing.
>
>No. It is free software. 

Valid point.  It is correct to say that you are not lobbying the
governments of the world to restrict public key cryptography to
keylengths of under 2048 bits.

>> Note that the attack you are positing doesn't have the same properties
>> as a factoring attack.
>
>There is no known way of factoring even a 1024 key.  And emails are
>usally not a target to mount factoring attack on a personal key - if
>you are capabale of doing so, you would start with widley used CA
>keys or keys on backing cards...
>
> ...You seem to be claiming you know exactly how hard it is to
> factor.  The fact is, however, that you don't.  Given that this is a
> judgment

>But I know that there are hundreds of far easier ways to achieve a
>goal.  Why breaking the front door when you can easily walk in
>through the unlocked back door.

You are not addressing the points raised.