UNCLBEN

Is there a free (as in beer) alternative?

MrDigital

I do not know. My knowledge of OSS tools is very limited.

-MrD

gurutoo

128 bit encryption=childs play

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Secti...le111-page1.php


Like I said, if they want your stuff really bad, they'll get it.

MrDigital

You're confusing a couple of things. WEP is easily cracked because you can SEE the key. This has always been an issue with WEP which is why WPA came about. You can read more about the issues with WEP here: http://www.isaac.cs.berkeley.edu/isaac/wep-faq.html

Standard encryption, not WEP, things such as PGP, 3DES, AES, RSA, etc, are not crackable in 3 minutes. They aren't crackable in 3 days. They aren't even crackable in 3 years unless you have a few supercomputers on your side like the NSA, but then it would still take months to crack even 128-bit encryption.

Take a look at this: http://www.distributed.net/rc5/

Note that it took a team of hundreds/thousands 250 days to crack a 56-bit key. It then took them 1757 days to crack a 64-bit key. As of the most recent update they still hadn't cracked the 72-bit key from 2002.

Keep in mind that despite computer advances, every extra bit takes twice as long as the bit before it. If it took 1 month to crack 50-bit encryption, it would take 2 months to crack 51-bit encryption, 4 months to crack 52-bit encryption, 8 months to crack 53-bit encryption and so on, if you were using the same equipment.

Computers are getting faster, but cracking a 128-bit key in our lifetime on your home PC is probably not going to happen.

-MrD

zackbass

On the point of strong encryption, data doesn't do much good while encrypted. While there are some cases where this is not true, the goods usually still have to go in and come out unencrypted (passwords only go in, things like credit card numbers have to do both). It's much more efficient to compromise an endpoint than to break strong encryption or brute-force something in most cases. Why assault the front of the fortress when you can walk around and cut the lock off the side door? You can only be as secure as your weakest point whether that be the loose-lipped secretary, the corruptable coworker, the disgruntled sysadmin, or that unmarked van parked down the street :P.

gurutoo

Yesss! and don't forget the Black Helicocopters outside the window...

JessLinksy

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