Miller, Bert wrote:
[snip]
2) This seems an awfully cheap out. What does this
evidence consist of, that Sylia couldn't get any before?
Why would Genom keep any - wouldn't Mason have made sure it
was destroyed? More fundamentally, this 'evidence' is
both digital and around ten years old: how can anybody
prove it wasn't just forged? The only technology of which
I am aware that can be used to prove the non-forging of
digital information is public-key cryptography, but, as
time passes and computers get better, there is a tendency
for today's computers to be able to crack yesteryear's
perfectly-safe cryptographic secrets. For instance (using
today's key lengths), if you were to say that you had
a 40-bit key protecting some data, so it was perfectly safe,
you'd be laughed at: that only takes hours to crack today,
using an array of a few hundred commodity processors (e.g.,
a University lab accessible to grad students). 128 bits
is good for today, but may not be in ten years.
You're right, but not right :)
40 bits WASN'T perfectly safe a few years ago ... it had been the limit
on what you could export for precisely that reason. A private citizen
couldn't easily brute force it, but any government (in particular *our*
government) could.
The 56 bit Data Encyption Standard algorithm can be brute forced by
special purpose machines in about 3 days, with current technology.
An 80 bit cipher, like Skipjack (the clipper chip's algorithm) can't be
brute forced today, but likely will be brute forced with ease in about
2-3 decades.
It's possible that a 128 bit cipher might never be brute forced.
The thing is... each bit of key you add DOUBLES the time it takes to do
brute force. To brute force a 56 bit key takes 65536 times longer to
brute force a 40 bit key. To brute force an 80 bit key takes 2**16 (or
16777218) times longer than to brute force a 56 bit key. To brute force
a 128 bit key takes 2**48 times longer than to brute force an 80 bit
key.
If we can break 56 bit keys now in 3 days, and computing continues to
double in speed every 1.5 years, then 24 years from now, we will be able
to break 80 bit keys in three days.
Likewise, if computing continues to double in speed every 1.5 years,
then 108 years from now we will be able to brute force a 128 bit key in
three days.
Computing speeds CAN NOT continue indefinitely to double in speed at the
rates they have in the past. I expect that in 5-10 years, maybe less,
we'll reach a limit, due to such things as some kind of quantum limit,
or the size of atoms, or something.
Back to the topic....
Assuming that GENOM would be foolish enough to keep documents indicating
that Dr. Stingray owned the patents for BUMAs, and that for some bizarre
reason the government patent office *didn't* have a copy of those
records...
One assumes that the data Sylia got was digitally signed, using public
key cryptography. But signed by whose key? Not [just] her father's...
one would assume that as his heir, she would have that; she could forge
any document and make it appear to be from him.
To make something which you can be "certain" was done at a particular
date, and no later, it has to be signed by a trusted third party (some
kind of digital equivilant of a "Notary Public").
What's to prevent Nene from breaking into the notary's computer and
stealing the old private keys, and making up whatever documents Sylia
wants? Ignoring of course that in Real Life, it's "impossible" to break
into *any* computer without direct physical access, unless there's
something seriously broken (some gaping security hole) with it's network
setup. [Microsoft has lots of holes in it's various OS's... let's
assume that folks in BGC aren't so stupid as to be using Win* for secure
data]