Re: Photuris Primality verification needed

[Hilarie Orman <ho@cs.arizona.edu>]

>  Recently, someone asked for a smaller prime of only 512-bits for speed.
>  This is more than enough for the strength of keys needed for DES, 3DES,
>  MD5 and SHA.  Perhaps this would be easier to have more complete and
>  robust verification as well.

Depending on what you think of the strength of those algorithms, the 512-bit
mod p system may not be strong enough.

The *strength* of 512-bit mod p DH systems is only about 56 bits.  You need
1024-bit primes for a *strength* of 80 bits.

In contrast, the 155-bit elliptic curve in the Photuris draft has a
strength of about 76 bits.