

The one thing I'd like to know about "PRISM" - jjq

Is what size of RSA key can the NSA routinely decrypt? I want to know that because it has massive economic implications if our SSL infrastructure is broken (and I&#x27;m not talking about the mess that is the certificate authorities but about decrypting live connections.)<p>Common RSA key sizes are 1 024 and 2 048 bits.<p>We know from past disclosures that there is widespread tapping of fibre optic lines by governments. But what level of SSL is broken?<p>The documentary film maker who recorded Snowden in Hong Kong stated that he wanted to communicate with PGP and that she was already familiar with it and _had keys_ because of previous work with Wikileaks and ioerror. A search in the PGP key ring shows that she generated a 4 096 bit key in 2011. She also stated the what Snowden was asking for was _beyond_ what she had previously been used to in terms of security and privacy.<p>So is one to assume that even 4 096 bit RSA is breakable by NSA?<p>And don&#x27;t think Elliptic Curve will save us. Rumeur is that NSA has a back door into the most common curves in the NIST standard.
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Piskvorrr
The current PRISM issue doesn't seem to touch upon encryption much: the
companies processing the data have apparently surrendered it to NSA in
decrypted form. To use the common example, what good is it for Alice to know
that her messages with Bob are encrypted en route to/from Carol (their e-mail
provider), when Carol will give the unencrypted messages to Mallory anyway?

And to touch upon your question, I don't think NSA would truthfully pass out
this type of information even if it was forced to; so essentially "nobody
knows."

(Also, "the CA mess" is also a workable vector for decrypting live connections
regardless of encryption strength, see "Etilasat")

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samfisher83
I don't think the NSA can crack 4096 bit keys. If someone was able to find a
flaw in the algorithm they would have published it. I don't think the NSA can
pay better than some company, and some one smart enough to crack it will
probably want to brag about it. Just brute forcing just take too much time and
energy.

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Piskvorrr
Indeed. At this point, encryption (if done correctly, which is a big if) is
not the weak point; people are the weak point (as usual).

Obligatory XKCD: [http://xkcd.com/538/](http://xkcd.com/538/)

