Fujitsu Cracks Next-Gen Cryptography Standard

judgecorp writes "Fujitsu and partners have cracked a cryptogram which used 278-digit (923 bit) pairing-based cryptography. The technology was proposed as a next-generation standard, but Fujitsu cracked it, at this level in just over 148 days using 21 personal computers." Reader Thorfinn.au adds a snippet from Fujitsu's announcement of the break: "This was an extremely challenging problem as it required several hundred times computational power compared with the previous world record of 204 digits (676 bits). We were able to overcome this problem by making good use of various new technologies, that is, a technique optimizing parameter setting that uses computer algebra, a two dimensional search algorithm extended from the linear search, and by using our efficient programing techniques to calculate a solution of an equation from a huge number of data, as well as the parallel programming technology that maximizes computer power."

Comments

Pretty Fast

[MyLongNickName]

148 PCs * 21 days is around ten years of PC time. Not much in the grand scheme of things.

Re:Pretty Fast

[SJHillman]

Given a modest botnet of around 3000 hosts, this could be cracked in about a day.

However, note that between the 21 PCs, there were 252 cores - an average of 12 cores per PC, so these desktop PCs were at least reasonably high-end even if still consumer technology.

Re:Pretty Fast

[Bengie]

It is estimated that AES256 would take about 2^200 operations with currently public flaws.

Hypothetical
1,000,000,000 computers(1bil computers)
1,000,000,000,000,000 ops per computer(1peta op)
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 ops per second total

1.6069380442589902755419620923412e+60 ops to break AES256

1.6069380442589902755419620923412e+60 / (1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 * 60sec * 60min * 24hr * 365days)
is 50,955,671,114,250,072,156,962,268,275.658 years

You would have to be quite dedicated and live a long time to break AES with current math/computers.

My cousin went through an advanced crypto class and his teacher ran the math and it comes down to this. If you had an ideal computer(100% efficient) that consumed the absolute minimum amount of energy that it takes to represent data based on our current laws of physics, you would have to consume all of the heat energy in the entire Milkyway Galaxy. Short of a major flaw in AES, no galaxy-bound computer can break AES.

Re:Pretty Fast

[Bengie]

Twofish is decently faster than AES and still quite strong(Twofish almost became AES, was in the final 5), so it is a good alternative. SHA1 is a hash, not a symmetric encryption.

Unless it uses brute-forcing and is correct on the first guess...

AES keys are typically randomly generated or based on a hash. AES is strong, so breaking the public key or password to get the AES key is always the best way to "break" AES, but it's really just a side-channel attack. That's not AES's fault.

Re:Pretty Fast

[Bengie]

Most of the next gen cryptography is about public keys or hashes. AES is still effective, so the weakest link in the chain is going to be passwords or breakable public keys, which would allow an attacker to acquire the AES key during the hand-shake.

One needs a safe way to transmit the AES key over a public network, like the internet. Public keys are very slow, but semi strong. AES is quite fast and really really really strong. Trying to make asymmetric encryption strong is hard because the public key gives information about the private key.

What algorithm was this?

[Urd.Yggdrasil]

This article makes very little sense to me. They don't mention what the crypto algorithm was or who was pushing it as the "next gen standard". I don't know of any proposed cryptographic standard with 923 bit anything.

Re:What algorithm was this?

[mister2au]

For starters:

- IEEE P1363.3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_P1363#Identity-based_public_key_cryptography_based_on_pairings_.28P1363.3.29
- NIST http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/ST/IBE/index.html

Re:What algorithm was this?

[vlm]

"I don't know of any proposed cryptographic standard with 923 bit anything."

Ha I found it, purely by luck. First of all assume the press release went thru a journalism and PR filter so its almost entirely incorrect other than some numbers might not be incorrect.

I remember reading a paper on implementing IDEA (which is a two decade old, semi-patent-unencumbered algo because its so old) on a Spartan FPGA, which I remember because I fool around with a spartan dev board at home and this is the kind of thing you find when you google for fpga and various crypto system names, etc. Anyway that specific FPGA implementation of IDEA has a latency of ... 923 cycles. So its not 923 bit anything, they're talking about a streaming cryptosystem that takes 923 cycles from the first bit squirts in until that encrypted first bit bit squirts out, and the journalist filter rewrote it. Thats low enough latency for high bandwidth stuff like video, but not so good for voice or keyboard ssh unless you play some games (which is a whole nother topic)

Anyway, cracking a "mere" 128 bit sample in 148 days or whatever is still kinda interesting, even if its not cracking an entire 923 bit system. Landauer limit alone would imply they had to have cracked the algorithm not just brute forced it.

http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse590g/01sp/fccm00_idea1.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Data_Encryption_Algorithm

Re:and yet

[localman57]

You don't know that. If they can, they aren't going to tell you. And they aren't going to piss away a secret capability that valuable prosecuting some drug-dealer, or kiddie porn maker. For the forseeable future, you'd only use it on matters of highest national interest, and then you'd only act directly on such information if you were resonably sure it wasn't a red-herring specifically designed to test if you can break such encryption.

More detail from NICT

[mister2au]

NICT has an arguably better press release of the same partnership - it goes in just a little detail (which is better than almost none from Fujistsu)

http://www.nict.go.jp/en/press/2012/06/18en-1.html