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Chinese Prof Cracks SHA-1 Data Encryption Scheme
Hades1010 writes to mention an article in the Epoch Times (a Chinese newspaper) about a brilliant Chinese professor who has cracked her fifth encryption scheme in ten years. This one's a doozy, too: she and her team have taken out the SHA-1 scheme, which includes the (highly thought of) MD5 algorithm. As a result, the U.S. government and major corporations will cease using the scheme within the next few years. From the article: " These two main algorithms are currently the crucial technology that electronic signatures and many other password securities use throughout the international community. They are widely used in banking, securities, and e-commerce. SHA-1 has been recognized as the cornerstone for modern Internet security. According to the article, in the early stages of Wang's research, there were other data encryption researchers who tried to crack it. However, none of them succeeded. This is why in 15 years Hash research had become the domain of hopeless research in many scientists' minds. "
Thats making a huge assumption that the NSA or any other organisation relies heavily on "one particular encryption mechanism" to transmit information. The industry has moved its focus away from relying on more powerful encryption schemes to more difficult to intercept transmition methods such as http://www.laser2laser.co.nz/laser_products.htm . There is no particular piece of the puzzle that makes a network or data more secure. Believing this is a major "shake up" or is going to cause a "major reaction" shows a lack of understanding about security on the part of the person making the speculation.
20th century Marxism is not progress...
TFA refers to its own source as the New Scientist. A quick search there reveals the article in question is dated February 2005. So I guess this should probably come under "oldnews", but in any case the NSA had had plenty of time to play with it.
What concerns me is that in the last two years I've heard no news about a replacement for SHA-1. Maybe every's hoping that if they ignore the problem, it'll go away.