Wednesday, March 10, 2010

RSA Encryption cracked (?)

RSA is the best-known most widely-used encryption scheme. Anytime you go to a secure website, you're using the RSA public-key cryptosystem. So, it's a bit scary when you see a report about something so widely used as having been cracked. Well, under careful, laboratory-controlled conditions, you can apparently crack RSA, even with very long encryption keys. But I don't think I'm going to stop shopping at NewEgg.com anytime soon.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/09/1024-bit-rsa-encryption-cracked-by-carefully-starving-cpu-of-ele/

Thanks to alumnus Elliot Kaye for this tip.