Re: I've seen things you people wouldn't believe...

On May 17, 3:47 pm, "Keith F. Lynch" <k...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
<petert...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
BTW, I was the person behind the RSA Symmetric Key Challenges, ...

Have you any idea why the RSA factoring challenge was terminated last
year?  They used to offer up to $200,000 to factor certain numbers.
Then suddenly, with no advance notice, they weren't offering a nickel.

I can't make a definitive statement. I no longer work for RSA,
and am not now, nor have I even been, a spokesman for the
company. However, consider the following:

1. RSA was taken over by EMC. EMC may have had
different ideas as to appropriate corporate activities.

2. The Symmetric Challenges were basically a
political hack, proving incontrovertibly what
everyone in the business knew already - that 56 bit
DES was crackable by brute force. The USG had
been maintaining that it was 'good enough',
but after the crack, no business could use it and claim
due diligence. This led to a relaxation of export
regulations in 2000, which was the desired goal.

3. While RSA and it predecessor had run the factoring
challenges for nearly 30 years, there was no evidence that
the prizes were still contributing to the state of the art - the
groups that were improving factoring would have done so
anyway.

4. Cash prizes were also proving quite problematic;
if university or corporate resources were used, the
individuals performing the crack would either not get the
money, or get in trouble with their employer. There
were cases of people getting fired for using corporate
computers in some of the challenges without
authorization.

Personally, I would have like to see the factoring
challenge continue. It was a very good way of
dealing with people who claimed to be able to
break RSA.

Of course, nothing I or anyone else can say will
convince the paranoid that there isn't a secret
fast factoring algorithm. That's the nature of the
business.

pt

.

Relevant Pages

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