01-23-07 06:16 AM
Cyberiade.it Anonymous Remailer wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Jan 2007, marlowe <marlowe@antagonism.org> wrote:
>
> Number 1, this is old news.
> Number 2, SHA-1 in NOT an "encryption algorythm", it is a *hashing*
> algorythm.
SHA1 is old news too, and they're *all* hashing algorithms. Wang
doesn't mess with actual encryption at all. The actual article linked to
by the horribly written bit of trash above makes that a little clearer.
Literacy issues aside, cracking hashing algorithms in a couple years
is a completely different thing from cracking actual encryption in the
same amount of time. Signatures are generally more ephemeral than
encrypted data. IOW, after relatively short periods of time it doesn't
matter because the signature has been used to verify the target. At
which time you can toss the signature away for all intents and
purposes. And forgeries made at later dates are obvious.
Encrypted data on the other hand needs to be secure "for ever" in
theory, or ridiculously long periods of time in practice. Nothing Wang
has done to date can be considered a real threat to anything. She
hasn't compromised *any* encrypted data what so ever, and her attacks
against hashing algorithms haven't been able to produce results in any
useful amount of time. The whole thing is mostly FUD. Something to be
aware of but no reason to panic. No matter how impressed Wang is with
her own accomplishments, the rest of the security and encryption
industry sees them as normal and expected advances in technology. ;-)
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