Re: The Upcoming DES Challenge

[sameer <sameer@c2.net>]

> There is nothing unglamorous about a known plaintext attack, if the
> plaintext is choosen carefully. I don't know anything about bank ATMs
> and the protocols they use, but I presume the PIN is stored on the card
> single DES encrypted. If this is so, anyone can take an ATM card, attack it
> to recover the key and then use that key to recover the PIN for any stolen
> ATM card of that bank (or that branch). Hopefully, the ciphertext/plaintext
> pair that RSA announces will be a real target like this, with the actual key
> disabled. Once the key is recovered, the press can then claim that ATM
> cards are not safe any longer.

	Stolen ATM cards are actually not that valuable. They have
fixed limits and require physical presence to exploit. Try
swift/forex/etc. secret des keys.. those are valuable.

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