"Mad Cows" - not just another health scare
By Martin Deutsch

Ever wonder about how secure your personal data is when it's being transferred over the Internet?

If you are in the USA, then the chances are that your web browser will be using 128-bit encryption to send secure data, such as credit card numbers. Now, while the actual term "128-bit" means absolutely nothing to me, I do know it's highly secure. So secure, in fact, that the U.S. government won't allow it to be exported, because it's classified as "munitions". So, where does that leave you if you're not living Stateside? Well, with half that protection. 64-bit encryption is found in Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and a handful of the lesser-known browsers too. But does the smaller number make it easier to crack?

Not exactly. The people behind these encryption technologies wanted to find that out. RSA Labs, from time to time, set challenges to see who can crack their codes. That isn't exactly easy, though. If a computer were to check every single combination of RSA's RC5 64-bit code, a computer would need to go through something like 64 billion processor cycles. Now, that is going to take a long time. Here's where distributed computing steps in. "What's that?" I hear you cry! Well, wouldn't it make life easier if your computer had two processors, each working on the same task? That way, you could get things done in twice the time.

Distributed computing works on the same principle, but on a larger scale -- using individual processors in computers around the world. All the user has to do is download the code-cracking program from the organiser and set it running on their computer. Then, whenever the computer is idle, the code-cracker steps in, and starts churning through blocks. Every so often, it will connect to an Internet site and upload its efforts so far, then find out what to do next, and so on until RSA's code is eventually cracked. Who organises this distributed efford? The appropriately named "distributed.net", that's who.

They are a group of people who help out with everything -- sending out the blocks of code to the right people, writing programs for the end-users to run the code on, and so on. "So," you're thinking, "why should I bother?" Well, there is a little incentive here -- $10,000 of it, in fact. Read the small print and you'll discover that the average user can only get a maximum of $2,000, but it's still a decent amount: visit distributed.net for more info. And maybe even the satisfaction of knowing that you contributed to Internet security. No, really. Stop laughing! :) For more information, your best place to start would be www.distributed.net. You'll find just about everything there, including client software for just about every type of computer imaginable (so this isn't entirely a Mac-related posting).

Late news: from Monday, 18th January, RSA Labs will be running DES-III, a test of another of their encryption technologies. The difference here is that the prize money decreases over time, and will disappear after 56 hours, so there really is quite a race for this challenge. distributed.net has further info on this.

Martin Deutsch / martin@highlander.net.uk

Even later news: The DES-III challenge was cracked (I think it was within something like 22 hours) before this e-zine was released, so unfortunately you can't take part in it any more. However, distributed.net is still running the RC5 challenge.

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