Subject: draft-simpson-des-as-01.txt

From: "Karl Fox" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 14:38:29 -0400

The Internet Draft, "DES Applicability Statement for Historic Status" 
(draft-simpson-des-as-01.txt) says:

Abstract

    "The PPP DES Encryption Protocol" [RFC-2419], "The ESP DES-CBC Cipher 
    Algorithm With Explicit IV" [RFC-2405], and "The ESP DES-CBC 
    Transform" [RFC-1829] have been re-classified to Historic status, and 
    implementation is Not Recommended.

    "The PPP Triple-DES Encryption Protocol (3DESE)" [RFC-2420] and "The 
    ESP Triple-DES Transform" [RFC-xxxx] are now classified as mandatory 
    to implement for Standards Track interoperability.

    This Applicability Statement provides the supporting motivation for 
    that classification. The primary reason is that DES alone provides 
    insufficient strength for the protection of moderate value 
    information for any length of time.

Do you agree with this?  Is declaring single DES as historic the right thing 
to do given deployment and where it is used?

Please make your opinion known.

Karl Fox <[email-masked]>
Key fingerprint = 5B15 7260 D55E D680 0B93  4953 8A3B AB0E C05D 77A3

---

From: "Mark Anthony Beadles" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 15:58:09 -0400

A simple extrapolation of the crack times given in this document shows that
on approximately 1 December of this year (1999), technology should exist
that can crack DES in 1 hour. By 1 January 2001, the crack should take under
two minutes. The data fit a logarithmic curve quite well:

Crack Date	Time (Hrs.)
17 Jun 97	3360.00	<Actual>
23-Feb-98	 960.00	<Actual>
16-Jul-98	  56.00	<Actual>
19-Jan-99	  22.25	<Actual>
01-Dec-99	   1.07	<Extrapolated>
01-Jan-01	   0.03	<Extrapolated>

This projection assumes only that technology will continue to improve at the
current rate - any "breakthroughs" will move the timetable up.

So the conclusion of the authors:

"Adversaries with relatively
small budgets will soon have the capability to recover 56-bit keys in
hours or minutes.  Well-financed adversaries have or will soon have
the capability to recover any DES key within seconds."

is not unreasonable.

+        Mark Anthony Beadles         +
+    [email-masked]     +
+ Vox 614.565.1308 Pager 888.660.8427 +