Researchers have found a weakness in the AES algorithm. They managed to come up with a clever new attack that can recover the secret key four times easier than anticipated by experts. In the last decade, many researchers have tested the security of the AES algorithm, but no flaws were found so far. The new attack applies to all versions of AES even if it used with a single key. The attack shows that finding the key of AES is four times easier than previously believed; in other words, AES-128 is more like AES-126.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2005-06-29
How about "impossible within the natural lifespan of all currently living humans and their great*10^18 offspring"? That's my take on it.
After all, I doubt any humans would be left alive 70 quadrillion years from now to care what the encrypted data was. Even if there were, the computer being used to crack it would likely disintegrate completely a few hundred million years into the process.
So, yeah, "impossible" is, for all intents and purposes, a practical description.
Edit: And yes, I know galvanash's white paper called for 77 septillion years, but I was attempting to stay within the lifespan of the universe, give or take an order of magnitude.
Edited 2011-08-18 00:04 UTC
Member since:2006-01-26
Actually, with a brute force attack, there's an (exceptionally) slim possibility that the first attempt will crack it.
That's the thing with a brute force attack, you don't necessarily have to go through the entire keyspace to break it, just until you actually find the answer
That's what makes it extremely improbable vs. impossible.
Member since:2007-09-22
What you have to remember is that encryption isn't perfect. It is just statistics. They talk about how likely it is your data can be decrypted.
Your data is only as save as it's key.
For example if the random-data which is used to generate your key is somewhat predictable you have a big problem.
Because the range of keys that need to be tested gets reduced very quickly. It allows to test for whole lot less keys thus the kind of guesses that will be done will be a lot more likely to be right.
Obviously the problem with guessing is, you can guess right at the first time by accident (or in the first million or whatever a 'short' timeframe is).
So it is just statistics, it just says how large the key space is and thus how likely it is you can guess it.
Maybe a lottery is just a small keyspace, but people do win it. And pretty sure almost every day someone on this planet gets struck by lightning.
Certain hardware is also a lot more suitable than others.
From a paper on GPGPU and AES in 2010 mentions: "A peak throughput rate of 8.28 Gbit/s is achieved"..."the GPU is 19.60 times faster than the CPU."...
And that was in 2010.
It is also possible to build hardware specifically for guessing keys and testing decryption.
People always say: well, my data isn't that important, no-one will take the time to create the hardware to break it.
But the people creating the hardware are not making the hardware to just break your key, they make it to break the most valuable key.
And if it works, they will start on the next key and improve on the design I'm sure.
Is there a government or company in the world that is already working on this ? We don't know.
I'll shut up again.
Member since:2009-06-23
This must be the most autistic sample of pedantry I've encountered since early April.
Oh, and for your arguing style you also have a raspberry from me in
semantics, as "demonstrably" may be the lamest excuse for a technicality this month (infantile hypercorrection).
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!
Member since:
2005-07-12
I don't think there are words that could convey the unlikelihood of such an event and still be accurate.
To my ears, nearly impossible has always sounded more likely than exceedingly unlikely.
Either way, impossible is demonstrably wrong.