* Georgi Guninski: > would prefer to keep my secrets encrypted with algorithm whose breaking > requires *provable* average runtime x^4242 or even x^42 instead of > *suspected runtime* 2^(x/4).
It depends on the constant factors you omitted, including those in the lower-order terms. 8-) AES can be broken with O(1) effort, but the constant is so huge that it's considered impractical. IIRC, OpenPGP has an upper bound for key length, too, so it too can be broken with O(1) effort as well. Obviously, this isn't particularly meaningful. For actually breaking algorithms, all that matters is the actual running time of an attack, and the necessary storage capacitiy. Big-O notation and complexity classes are not very helpful. _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
