Secret keys not secret anymore !!!

www.nytimes.com...
From above link:
Executing the attack would require only knowledge of the math flaw and the ability to send
a “poisoned” encrypted message to a protected computer, he wrote.
It would then be possible to compute the value of the secret key used by the targeted system.

cryptome.org...
From above link:
This completely breaks the security of this key. (secret key)

This means the end of secure commmunication, computer and telephone devices.
The major risk is that all those security feautures gives a false fealing of security.

Secrets not SECRET anymore

We can also remove the S from ATS.

And Brittan has already lost their SECRETS.
news.bbc.co.uk...

Those were never secure mediums in fact plain old telephone service is by far the easiest to tap. The internet origionated as a military technology so that has NEVER been safe and well cell phone technology was also in military hands before public so i would assume also not safe. This is hardly news but instead something that most people already believed and needed no proof to determine that it was true.

I don't understand how slight maths errors can give you complete access to an encrypted message

Say for instance one brand of chip has one set of errors, and another has another set of errors - why not double encrypt first using one make then another?

I know the level of maths is way above my head - I think the best way is to burn it to a disk with a password and send by some dude on a moped, you will never have a problem that way.

unless of course your the brittish government, and the guy loses the disc!!!!! mwahahaha

To be honest, I dont think I ever thought these things were "secret" in the first place, so despite being 'breaking news', I'm not overwhelmed by it. Perhaps this is a defeatist attitude, but I'm only being honest.

I have a close friend that was in the USN who's field was cryptography. And according to him, its well known that its a cat and mouse game, never really knowing weither your the cat or mouse..



[edit on 23-11-2007 by HomeBrew]

Originally posted by pieman
unless of course your the brittish government, and the guy loses the disc!!!!! mwahahaha

Ahem British with just the one letter T if you don't mind.........time for tea yes

The article doesn't say it IS broken, just that it is hypothetically possible. It boils down to the implementation of cipher that is used. There is a bug in Blowfish that breaks it, but it only affects certain implementations. There is an article on Schenier.com about it. www.schneier.com... This is no different really, only you're breaking the hardware it is running on, rather than the algorithm directly.

If you follow the second link the OP posted, there is a good post by someone there who explains how it works. Actually computing the primes takes some serious processing time, but it is possible, if you're prepared to wait.

[edit on 23-11-2007 by mirageofdeceit]

cryptome.org...
By reverse engineering the Crypto++ fix, from link above, it becomes very easy to create the remote bug-attack, to reveal the secret key.

All those security features given to us by governments and financial institutions give a false feeling of security.

Also your Windows system creates predictable Secret Socket Layer (SSL) keys.

eprint.iacr.org...