As it currently stands (and I get most of my info from Bruce Schneier, so take it with that grain of salt), there are some attacks that require related keys but even those still take on the order of 2^50 operations. It is, of course, possible that the NSA has an attack vector that their researchers have figured out that they are keeping secret. Given the intelligence of the non-NSA crypto community and the fact that top-secret government communications have approval to use AES, I rather doubt that the NSA would trust in their ability to keep that attack vector secret and believe that no one else could come up with it. That's a supposition, however and I don't have any way of knowing what the NSA really does or believes.
Cheers, Judah On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Cameron Childress <[email protected]> wrote: > > While the keys are the easiest route, it's not entirely true that brute > force is "the only way to defeat encryption". People in the crypto > community have repeatedly found weaknesses in crypto tech that was > previously thought to be unbreakable. This doesn't usually "unlock" the > crypto entirely, but provides shortcuts to break it faster. Brute force, in > some fashion, may still be required - but it's far from the ONLY way. > > -Cameron > > On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 2:01 PM, Judah McAuley <[email protected]> wrote: > >> There are no secret back doors to open source encryption with public >> algorithms. The only way to defeat it is with brute force attacks >> and/or social engineering. The NSA and related group have a heck of a >> lot of computing power at their disposal but if the people doing the >> encryption know what they are doing (which is always a supposition >> open to criticism) and applied, say, multiple rounds of encryption >> with AES using a strong key and good salting then, yes, it would be a >> very long brute force attack. Far easier to try and steal the keys. >> > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:354577 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
