Re: Warning about PGP - relax

[markh@wimsey.bc.ca (Mark C. Henderson)]

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Subject: Re: Warning about PGP - relax

>  WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - WARNING - WARNING
> > insecure. Hastad demonstrated a successful attack
> > against RSA with a low encryption key [417]. Another
> > attack by Michael Wiener will recover e, when e is
> > up to one quarter the size of n [878].

Take a look at the errata (I'm quoting from version 1.5.9).

} Page 287:  Last line:  Wiener's attack is misstated.  If d is
} less than one-quarter the length of the modulus, then the attack
} can use e and n to find d quickly.

Still, I do prefer e=65537 to e=17 (the value that PGP typically 
uses). But the situation isn't as bad as it looks from reading 
Schneier. 

Mark

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-- 
Mark Henderson markh@wimsey.bc.ca - RIPEM MD5: F1F5F0C3984CBEAF3889ADAFA2437433
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