Banks and 128 bit DES

[Owen Blacker]

Quoting Peter Gutmann <pgut001@cs.auckland.ac.nz>:

> You're out of touch.  Here's a quick tutorial on crypto as
> portrayed by the
> trade press:
>
>   There are two types of encryption, forteebit encryption (which
> is bad
>   encryption because hackers can break it and steal your credit
> card number)
>   and hunnertwenneeatebit encryption (which is good encryption
> because hackers
>   can't break it).  Most current web browsers use forteebit
> encryption.
>   Examples of forteebit encryption algorithms are RC4 and DES. 
> Outside the US
>   (until recently) only banks could use hunnertwenneeatebit
> encryption,
>   examples of which are triple DES and RSA.  If you want your
> credit card to
>   be secure when you send it over the Internet, you should use
>   hunnertwenneeatebit encryption.
>
> (I'm not just being facetious here, from my experience this is how
> most non-
>  crypto-aware people perceive "weak" vs "strong" crypto).

And it's not a *particularly* bad way for someone to grasp the concept 
without understanding the details.  It'll suffice, methinks...   :o)


O x
-----
Owen Blacker
Senior Internet Developer and Internet Security Consultant
DSS: 0x7e3c8eab | 2f45 c60d 6a0a 0007 193d  d994 cd36 e021 7e3c 8eab
RSA: 0x38fee6c3 |      7c41 e69c 5b8a 484d  22af 1859 f4c9 307b


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