Cryptography Expert Sounds Alarm At Possible Math Hack

netbuzz writes "First we learn from Bruce Schneier that the NSA may have left itself a secret back door in an officially sanctioned cryptographic random-number generator. Now Adi Shamir is warning that a math error unknown to a chip makers but discovered by a tech-savvy terrorist could lead to serious consequences, too. Remember the Intel blunder of 1996? 'Mr. Shamir wrote that if an intelligence organization discovered a math error in a widely used chip, then security software on a PC with that chip could be "trivially broken with a single chosen message." Executing the attack would require only knowledge of the math flaw and the ability to send a "poisoned" encrypted message to a protected computer, he wrote. It would then be possible to compute the value of the secret key used by the targeted system.'"

Comments

Re:First Post?

[Planesdragon]

and there are very few *thinking* people who are not afraid of the Patriot Act. You, sir, are an idiot and a snob.

There are all kinds of intelligent people who are not afraid of the Patriot Act. There are lawyers who read it and don't see the same problems that the "blogosphere" (for lack of a better term) sees. There are US Attorneys -- smart people, by the nature of their job -- who wouldn't be afraid of it even if the blogosphere were correct. And, there are even people who are willing to let the FBI and the CIA and their local library all talk to each other, because they don't equate privacy with either security or liberty. Heck, there are even people who think the blogosphere is correct, and yet think there are far worse things in the world today, and so aren't all that afriad of it.

These people may all be entirely wrong. There are parts of the Patriot Act that are too far and need to be repealed. But that doesn't mean those who aren't they're not thinking, and you insult them and marginalize yourself when you claim so.