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Re: More FUD from First Virtual
> From: Adam Shostack <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: More FUD from First Virtual
> To: [email protected] (jim bell)
> Date: Sat, 9 Dec 1995 16:51:58 -0500 (EST)
> Cc: [email protected]
> jim bell wrote:
>
> [Good points about cost of transactions deleted]
>
> | The answer, I think, it that there would be no problem finding people to
> | take that risk in exchange for the return, ESPECIALLY if they have some
> | input into the design (level of security) of the system. They might insist
> | on 2048-bit RSA keys, instead of 1024-bit, for example.
>
> (I know its only an example, but...)
>
> Key length is not what is needed for better security; more
> solid code and better interfaces are needed. (I might also argue for
> hardware keys that are more difficult to steal..)
Nonsense. The code is pretty solid, the interfaces aren't very
difficult. What is needed is better human management of keys. Why
brute-force, why look for weak keys, why bother calculating how much
safer 2047-bit keys are rather than 1024-bit keys when someone can
look on your HD and find your secret key, when they can open your
desk drawer and find your pass phrase or password, when they can
guess that you used your wife's maiden name as your password?
Adam, I don't understand why you wrote nonsense in the first
paragraph, then followed it up with textbook attacks such as:
> Cryptosystems fail because of bad storage of keys, coding
> mistakes, accidentally writing passphrases to disk during a swap, etc.
> Moving to 2048 bit keys is no help if you lose the key to a
> non-cryptanalytic attack. Moving to keys with a week or day lifetimes
> might be better.
Moving the systems which automatically issue key revocation
certificates, and coupling that with a wide distribution system would
be the perfect match to such a scheme. Of course, that means that
PGP et. al. needs to be more tightly integrated into existing mail
software.