Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

RSA-640 Factored

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the bigger-better-deal dept.

gslin writes to tell us MathWorld News is reporting that RSA-640 has been factored. F. Bahr, M. Boehm, J. Franke, and T. Kleinjung, memebers of the German Federal Agency for Information Technology Security (BSI) announced they had cracked the 193-digit number last Friday using the General Number Field Sieve. The team purportedly used 80 opteron CPUs and 5 months to achieve victory.

3 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hmmm. by LnxAddct · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I think your remark was a joke about them breaking into RSA's computers, this is still worth mentioning. Noone in the entire world knows or has ever known the factors of the remaining numbers. Read this for more info.
    Regards,
    Steve

  2. Re:Factor? by jgc7 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Inerestingly enough, there is no proof that encryption is even possible. Presently we do not know of any methods to factor a number in polynomial time while we can create primes in polynomial time, but an algorithm may exist that can factor primes in polynomial time. If one is discovered, encryption as we know it today will be impossible... even with your quantum computer. In fact, a solution to the P NP problem comes with a $1,000,000 prize.

    --
    70% of statistics are made up.
  3. Recommended key sizes by atomm1024 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Here is a very useful site, listing estimates of how long various algorithms will be secure, and at what key sizes. It covers public- and secret-key algorithms, as well as hashes.

    http://www.keylength.com/

    --
    Signature.