Wired News delivered to your inbox or hand-held device. Therefore, it argues, the government should replace DES with more modern, stronger encryption technology. The government established the 56-bit DES as a standard in 1977. It claims that the vast difficulty and expense in cracking DES makes it sufficiently safe. Allowing the use of stronger encryption, the government maintains, would only help terrorists and other criminals communicate without government monitoring.
Key recovery allows third parties, such as law enforcement, to retrieve encrypted information.
The US policy has long angered privacy advocates and the computer industry, which is eager to sell its encryption wares overseas. This is going to become a more routine sort of occurrence. Letting it be done in public view calls attention to that. The winners of RSA's last challenge cracked DES in just 56 hours. So now RSA is calling on contestants to crack open an encoded message in 24 to 48 hours, and there's money in it for whoever does.