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Current Crypto Trends with Bruce Schneier
Saint Aardvark writes "SecurityFocus has published an interview with Bruce Schneier. Fascinating stuff, especially the level-headed assessments of the NSA, spam and the impact of full disclosure: 'Q: Since most crypto protocols on the internet, such as SSL or SSH, uses public-keys to build a secure channel, wouldn't a unexpected public disclosure create a chaos on the internet ? A: No. Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet. Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos.'"
Oh crap, the article must be encrypted!
Could you introduce yourself ?
I'm a security technologist. My career has been a series of generalizations. I started working in cryptography: mathematical security. Then I realized that all the cryptography in the world won't help if the computer is insecure, and all the computer security won't help if the network is insecure. Since then, I have been concentrating more on the social and economic aspects of security, realizing that all the technology in the world won't help if those aren't done right.
More on my background can be found on schneier.com
NSA licensed Certicom's EC patents for $25 million last year, and recently announced the new US government standard for key agreement and digital signatures, called Suite B. It uses Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman
(ECDH) and Elliptic Curve Menezes-Qu-Vanstone (ECMQV) for key agreement,
and Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) for signature generation/verification. Do you think that NSA is promoting ECC based crypto because they cannot crack RSA/DSA based one ?
I do not. I believe the NSA believes that ECC is strong. I wrote about ECC here:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9911.html#Elli pticCurvePublic-KeyCryptography
Although I wrote that in 1999, I am still skeptical about elliptic curves.
Or maybe just because they can crack RSA/DSA they prefer to protect US business with ECC (supposed to be harder to crack)?
With sufficient key lengths, all of this is uncrackable. I don't believe that the NSA has any secret mathematics that they use to break RSA/DSA or ECC.
Would a quantum computer do the job ?
In theory, yes. In practice, we have no idea how to build one to do it. Maybe in fifty years. Or twenty-five.
Some time ago you co-authored a paper on software monopoly risks. What about crypto monopoly? Don't you think that having just a couple of public-key algorithms based on the same math problem could lead to a catastrophe if cracked ?
The security advantages of a common cryptographic algorithm far outweigh the disadvantages. I've written about that as well:
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-9904.html#diff erent.
What would you do if you found a solution to the factorization problem?
Any cryptographer, if they found something so significant as a solution of the factorization, would publish their results. Such a discovery would likely result in profound changes in how we view number theory, and would be the mathematical discovery of the decade...and maybe even more important.
Since most crypto protocols on the internet, such as SSL or SSH, uses public-keys to build a secure channel, wouldn't a unexpected public disclosure create a chaos on the internet ?
No. Chaos is hard to create, even on the Internet.
Here's an example. Go to Amazon.com. Buy a book without using SSL. Watch the total lack of chaos.
In the security community there are various ways of thinking about vulnerabilities disclosure (public-, full-, responsible-, no-). What is the situation in the crypto community ? What type of disclosure process is there ?
Most security professionals believe in full disclosure, and cryptographers are no exception. The advancement of the science is best served by the free exchange of ideas.
Why is often used a money-rewarded challenge to verify a crypto algorithm?
Because it's free consulting work, and money is an attempt to add some financial incentive. Most of the time it's a sham. While there are some legitimate contests, most are just attempts to gain publicity.
Recently some papers addressing hash functions were published, and you suggested on your blog that it's time to get to work replacing SHA. You wrote: "The NIST already has standards for longer -- and harder to break -- ha
They are always stupid.
:)
But in this case, you notice.
Pretty Pictures!