Re: RSA Broken?

[perry () snark imsi com (Perry E. Metzger)]

Carl Corey says:
> I read a while back that mathematicians, using several thousand computers
> were able to factor an RSA encrypted text.  Unfortunately, I missed any
> comprehensive articles on the subject, so I don't know the significance of
> what happened.

It was pretty much a non-issue. They factored a single 129 digit
number called RSA-129 -- it was only interesting because it was the
example used in the original Scientific American article on RSA. At
the time, factoring technology was far less advanced. Algorithms have
improved significantly but the problem still grows rapidly in the size
of the key -- a 1000 bit key (over twice as large as RSA-129) should
still be impossible to break given current technology. Even 512 bit
keys are probably not that safe these days, but this has been known
for some time.

Perry