HowTo?: 2048 bits DES key in GnuPG 1.0.6 ?

[Werner Koch]

On Mon, 24 Sep 2001 13:59:56 +0200, Marek Schneider said:

> Due to http://www.cyber-rights.org/interception/stoa/ic2kreport.htm
> the N^S^A is able to break 1024 bits and longer DES keys ...

Nonsense.  DES is a 56 bit cipher.  Because this is too short, DES is
only used in one of it's Triple-DES variant, which has an effectiv
key length of up to 112 bits.  There is no indication that anyone is
able to break a 112 bit key.

The 1024 bit is probably an asymmetric cipher (like RSA) which you
can't compare with a symmetric cipher (like 3-DES or AES).

It is quite some time ago that I read the ICC 2000 report, but I can't
remember that they say that the NSA is able to break 1024 bit RSA.
Currently we even can't think on how to do this - unless someone comes
up with a very new factoring algorithm, but in this case you can't be
sure whether RSA would be safe at all.  Even a 768 bit RSA key is
currently no breakable.

Ciao,

  Werner

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Werner Koch        Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit, dum habetur
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