I'm totally sorry if this is too simple an explanation, but maybe somebody would benefit from an elementary analysis.
Well, if you're going to brute-force an algorithm in the simplest sense, that pretty well means you're playing guess the number. Finding a faster way to do it would mean that there's some sort of weakness in the algorithm, but from the sounds of this distributed computing event, it's probably going to look just like the following:
Client:Is the password '0'? Server:No Client:Is it '1'? Server:No Client:Is it '2'? Server:No . . .
Client:Is it '19823745938715903857390857382957'? Server:Yes! The secret message is:
"Drink Your Ovaltine",
except in parallel.
So anyway, if something's a 64-bit key, that means that you've got 2^64 possible secret numbers. If you've got a 56-bit key, that means you've got 2^56. On average, you're probably going to have to guess about half of those keys before you find the right one. You need some statistics, which I don't have, to figure out more about the chances. If we want to compare the two, we can just say that since the first has 2^64 keys, and the second has 2^56, (2^64)/(2^56)=2^(64-56)=2^8=256. In summary, it's takes on average 1/256 the time to break a 56-bit key as a 64-bit key.
I can't imagine either algorithm being better than another to the point where it makes a big difference, so we can probably assume that the systems were designed by equally competent programmers.
Again, apologies if this is too simple, and please, please don't moderate me to the dungeon if *you* can do the math yourself!
Three cheers for bandwidth! Yahoo(r)! Unfortunately, I think we'll see a lot of inconvenience with this new speed. At the same time we get our/. faster, we will see in other places the further proliferation of certain large companies' bandwidth hogging banner ads, dynamic whiz-bang streaming(r) Who-knows-what, and the hopeless drowning out of real(r) content by various other forms of internet garbage.
Have you ever viewed the source on a page to see what the ratio was between actual human usable, relevant information, and something like tripleFlip.org's "click here to win a free inflatable tire" ad?
Just me blowing steam. Some things can't be helped.
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I'm totally sorry if this is too simple an explanation, but maybe somebody would benefit from an elementary analysis.
Well, if you're going to brute-force an algorithm in the simplest sense, that pretty well means you're playing guess the number. Finding a faster way to do it would mean that there's some sort of weakness in the algorithm, but from the sounds of this distributed computing event, it's probably going to look just like the following:
Client:Is the password '0'?
Server:No
Client:Is it '1'?
Server:No
Client:Is it '2'?
Server:No
.
.
.
Client:Is it '19823745938715903857390857382957'?
Server:Yes! The secret message is:
"Drink Your Ovaltine",
except in parallel.
So anyway, if something's a 64-bit key, that means that you've got 2^64 possible secret numbers. If you've got a 56-bit key, that means you've got 2^56. On average, you're probably going to have to guess about half of those keys before you find the right one. You need some statistics, which I don't have, to figure out more about the chances. If we want to compare the two, we can just say that since the first has 2^64 keys, and the second has 2^56, (2^64)/(2^56)=2^(64-56)=2^8=256. In summary, it's takes on average 1/256 the time to break a 56-bit key as a 64-bit key.
I can't imagine either algorithm being better than another to the point where it makes a big difference, so we can probably assume that the systems were designed by equally competent programmers.
Again, apologies if this is too simple, and please, please don't moderate me to the dungeon if *you* can do the math yourself!
Three cheers for bandwidth! Yahoo(r)! Unfortunately, I think we'll see a lot of inconvenience with this new speed. At the same time we get our /. faster, we will see in other places the further proliferation of certain large companies' bandwidth hogging banner ads, dynamic whiz-bang streaming(r) Who-knows-what, and the hopeless drowning out of real(r) content by various other forms of internet garbage.
Have you ever viewed the source on a page to see what the ratio was between actual human usable, relevant information, and something like tripleFlip.org's "click here to win a free inflatable tire" ad?
Just me blowing steam. Some things can't be helped.