512-bit RSA Key Cracked.

Alec Muffett writes " On Thursday, a small team of people (including myself) announced the world's first factorisation of a 512-bit RSA encryption key (aka: RSA-155) - considerably bigger than the RSA-129 challenge of several years ago, and this time performed by a small cabal of numbercrunchers, just to see if it could be done in secret. There are press releases and announcements available, as well as considerable discussion in sci.crypt. " Read on for what Alec has to say on the matter. This is a significant advance because such 512-bit length keys are routinely used in (possibly ill-advised?) transaction protocols for some important financial institutions (read: some serious $$$$$$$ may be at risk in the near future) - and moreover, as a factoring contributor, I can state that I personally have now been offered the use of additional hardware which could take the 6 or 7 months spent sieving for results, and reduce the time by a factor of some 40% to 60%.