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Hello. I googled around with no luck. I wish there could be some very |
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easy explanation of cipher strengths so that I could answer questions |
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like 'how strong 3DES is' to novice users. Most results I could find are |
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too technical / mathematical. I want very simple explanation like this: |
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|
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128 bit IDEA is very strong cipher. Normally, take a piece of encrypted |
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data, it would need one Pentium Xeon 2GHz personal computer xxxx years |
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to decrypt the data, this is as long as the age of the earth (or human, |
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or USA, whatever). Even if you could use the most powerful computer now |
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one the earth abcde (replace abcde with the computation power), you need |
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xxx (a number) of them to decrypt it in 5 years. |
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|
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The above sort of explanation is not precise, and will not be accepted |
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by any engineer / software documentation, but it's enough to let the |
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users (who definitely not wishing to become expert or have a PhD on |
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math) get the feeling that the data is almost safe. |
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|
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Another question: technically, how does IDEA compare to 3DES on cipher |
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strength and CPU usage? Is 3DES more safer than IDEA and cost more CPU time? |