DES search publicity (was Re: Cryptanalysis)

[Adam Back <aba@dcs.ex.ac.uk>]

Peter Trei <trei@process.com> writes:
> Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com> writes:
> > There may be a distributed Internet crack using that approach, 
> > though DES is still very inefficient on general-purpose computers and 
> > works better on bit-twiddliing chips.
> 
> There's one slowly shaping up, organized by the same people who did 
> the RC5-48 crack. I'm still rooting for an uncoordinated search, 
> which is already underway.

The people who did the RC5-48 crack over on <des-challenge@muffin.org>,
and <des-pr@mail.des-challenge.xtn.net>, or at least one of them in 
particular, seems dead set on giving the prize fund 50:50 to the EFF/GNU.  
I'm having a heck of a time talking him out of it.

What does your software do with the key if it finds it?  Attempt to
email it RSA DS/email it to you/report it to user/other?

Do you know how many people are running your uncoordinated breaking
project?  Are you keeping track of how many people have copies.  (I
suppose that not knowing how many people are running the client is a
disadvantage with the uncoordinated approach.)

I'm trying to get UK Computer shopper to include an uncoordinated DES
searcher in their cover CD, along with a feature article on the
challenge (I thought the possibility of winning $10,000 might be a
large part of the interest factor for a reader).  Don't know if
they'll be interested yet.

(What I'm keen on is the sheer size of the readership -- if 10% of
that lot runs the software, something might happen fast!)

Has anyone tried doing something similar in the US?  Anyone with
contacts with other PC magazine with CD/disk on front format,
preferably with large readership, in UK, US, or other countries?

For this kind of project, you'd need something with a simple windows
interface and install script.  I'd have thought a DES breaker which is
installed in win3.1/win95 to always start at boot up, and consume free
cycles (ie set to back off when the machine is doing other things).  A
screen saver with nice presentation would be one way to do this.

Do any of the breakers do this?  Are there clients from other breaks
which could be adapted which do?  I think someone wrote a screen saver
based breaker after the SSL break?

Adam

ps

Have there been any sightings of your code outside the US?

Rumor has it that ftp://ftp.replay.com/pub/incoming is a place where
things often turn up, but I haven't seen it yet.
--
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