But at the workshop, Shamir, from Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science, shed light on an ingenious way to speed up part of a factoring computation known as sieving. A sieve procedure consists of repeatedly running through a long list of numbers and finding which small integers divide those in the list. Due to U.S. export laws, the strongest exportable public-key systems are restricted to 512 bits. If and when the device is actually built, these systems can be easily broken. Brian Snow of the U.S. National Security Agency emphasized the need for more research in assurance technolgy.
Experts continue to search for answers to computer security.
Another development at CHES involved improved methods for generating random numbers. Nearly all real-world cryptosystems need random numbers. Unfortunately, this is an extremely difficult problem, since computers are designed to be completely predictable. At CHES, scientists from Italy's Ugo Bordoni Foundation offered a cost-effective idea based on sampling noisy semiconductor junctions. Normally in circuit design, engineers try to reduce noise.