[Beowulf] [tt] World's most powerful supercomputer goes online

[Jim Lux]

At 01:02 PM 9/2/2007, Kyle Spaans wrote:
>On 9/1/07, Robert G. Brown <rgb at phy.duke.edu> wrote:
>
> > RSA and DES and MD5 are considered "probably uncrackable" by
> > anyone with less than NSA-class resources, but of course this bot-cloud
> > is several orders of magnitude more powerful than NSA's probable setup.
>
>Why a "probable setup" ? I would agree that the NSA likely has a hefty
>HPC sitting around somewhere - but why don't we know about it? If the
>NSA goes through all the work of putting together a (not trying to
>sound pessimistic/conspiracy theorist)
>good-enough-to-crack-your-encryption-for-public-safety cluster, why
>wouldn't they have it up on the top500 list? Not wanting to gloat? Not
>wanting the "badguys to know what we've got"?

NSA has a generic aversion to publicity of any kind.

Read "The Puzzle Palace" by James Bamford.

Another good book that provides some insight into the way of thinking 
is Crypto by Steven Levy


Jim