Bernstein's NFS analyzed by Lenstra and Shamir 168
kousik writes "The analysis of Bernstein's NFS by Arjen Lenstra,
Adi Shamir, Jim Tomlinson, Eran Tromer has been
put up on cryptosavvy.
Seems interesting it comes from Lenstra and Shamir.
Lenstra lead the 1994 factorisation of RSA 129.
From the abstract: ... We also propose an improved circuit design based on a new mesh
routing algorithm, and show that for factorization of 1024-bit integers
the matrix step can, under an optimistic assumption about the matrix
size, be completed within a day by a device that costs a few thousand
dollars..."
Quotes from the paper (Score:5, Interesting)
believed them to be."
"We thus
conclude that the practical security of RSA for commonly used modulus
sizes is not significantly affected"
Sounds like it only speeds up one step of the factoring process, which is important to keep an eye on but not grounds for alarm.
The /. story quotes the wrong part of the paper (Score:5, Interesting)
It's 1.17, not 3.01... your keys less compromised (Score:4, Interesting)
Cliff notes version (Score:5, Interesting)
1) it's not quite as fast as Bernstein estimated (about half as fast for cliff notes purposes)
2) the hardware could be affordable (others have claimed costs that are only feasible for governments)
3) you don't have to revoke all your RSA keys because there are steps that precede the application of the Berstein method that still take absurd amounts of time and horsepower.
Oh, yeah, and it has nothing to do with Sun's NFS (Network File System, a lame and usually insecure way to share files).
Bernstein will no doubt reply. He isn't a shy guy from my experience.
Re:The /. story quotes the wrong part of the paper (Score:2, Interesting)
Off the shelf hardware?? (Score:1, Interesting)
The GX specs specifically state that they support 4.2 GB per second. They also state that memory latency is about 40ns. I checked pricewatch and found at least 6ns for pretty cheap. There are to many areas where it says "at least", "probably" or "about" for calculations regarding how much time it takes. They might be right but their "proof" consists of restating mathmatics rules and estimations. They probably should have spent more time on actual calculations and proofs
Re:Off the shelf hardware?? (Score:4, Interesting)
As for the two technical points you mentioned:
> > The bandwidth of the fastest PC memory is 3.2GB/sec
> The GX specs specifically state that they support 4.2 GB per second.
Indeed, but both PC3200 (DDR400) and dual PC800 (RDRAM) have a bandwidth of 3.2GB/sec.
> I checked pricewatch and found at least 6ns for pretty cheap
These "6ns" parts do not have a 6ns random-access latency. For instance, check these figures [ntsi.com].