Re: Crypto hardware (was: Using sound cards to accelerate RSA?)

[tcmay@got.net (Timothy C. May)]

At 1:49 AM 9/29/95, Douglas Barnes wrote:
>[Tim May writes about why crypto h/w acceleration using DSPs,
>and DSPs in general, are likely doomed niche markets.]
>
>I pretty much agree with Tim, except it's important to realize
>that a for a _server_ that is doing a lot of RSA operations, the
>difference between a 3.2 second encryption and a 1.9 second
>encryption is significant. Peak transaction volume for any
>public key-based payment system is going to be a factor of how many
>RSA ops you can do per second.

I don't disagree with Doug about this. But I don't think there are many
"server" systems running a lot of RSA at this point...for most of us, the
amount of RSA (or PGP, IDEA, DES, etc.) computation is a tiny fraction of
the total computons consumed running screen savers.

I'm just not convinced I'll soon invest in a company offering RSA acceleration.

(I recall seeing articles about specialized modular exponentiation hardware
in 1988, and Cylink was offering several such chips. I've yet to see any
commercial boards, for reasonable prices. And I'm willing to be that no
more than 3 members of our list would buy such a board, even if the hooks
were in place to let PGP, RSAREF, etc. use it. Just a hunch.)

--Tim May

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Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
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