Re: Encryption Key Lengths

["Richard Johnson" <rdump@river.com>]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

At 13:00 -0700 on 1/5/00, Brian Mann wrote:
> This recommended length is 256 bits. My question - is there some sort of
> optimal ratio of public to private key lengths? Or is a longer key more
> secure, regardless? I know that longer keys take exponentially longer to
> generate, but that's a one-time situation. The actual encryption used
> for the VPN is triple DES, which I understand to be 168 bit. So the key
> lengths shouldn't have any effect on the user response time?
>
> Sorry to be asking such basic questions. Any insights will be greatly
> appreciated.


This is admittedly conservative, and there's some minor disagreement about the
measures, but at least it'll give you a good taste of how the key lengths
compare.

	http://www.cryptosavvy.com/

More conservative analyses by some in the anonymous remailer community have
1024 bit RSA keys deprecated in favor of a minimum of 2048 bit.  There's some
worry, based partially upon message failures and delays that disappear after a
short time after the creation of a new nym or key, that some TLAs can crack a
1024 bit RSA key in O(week) under some circumstances.


Richard

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP Personal Privacy 6.5.2
Comment: www.europarl.eu.int/dg4/stoa/en/publi/166499/execsum.htm

iQA/AwUBOHP3FWKSuJuuNAZUEQKhygCgpQ+3jMyBK+Opq0d0KZ0A9gv9arAAnA1M
iRgHEbYCrDhZY16JdZFGeki7
=yBYC
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----