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There's a new way to break RSA that's faster than anything we've seen before (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 1 point 1 month ago* (6 children)

Elliptical curve for RSA was immediately phased out as soon as it was proven that the NIST was influenced by the NSA to implement it

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    And if I remember correctly, I believe it has more weaknesses (especially potential unknown ones) than RSA.

    But it's definitely more efficient on embedded hardware, and for sure still gets used in that space. Not that I'd know cough cough

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    And if I remember correctly, I believe it has more weaknesses (especially potential unknown ones) than RSA.

    what are those weaknesses? so far I have only read for users that ECC is more secure than RSA

    But it's definitely more efficient on embedded hardware,

    not only on embedded hardware, but everywhere and also in network transfer because of the smaller keys

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Tl;dr - Choosing parameters for ECC is very important but also very difficult. Also, ECC is more resistant to quantum algorithms than RSA.

    I didn't know about the PQC readiness of ECC so thank you!

    To my understanding, picking the right ECC parameters is critical to ensuring large enough entropy that it can't be brute forced. There are a lot of weak and easy to compromise parameters, and a lot of trust has to be put in the standards organizations declaring which ones are "safe" like the NIST curves. Or you can choose your own, with a lot of risk associated.

    There's also the fact that I believe there's more potential to leak info/expose side channels on the embedded devices running these protocols (I've personally had to worry at work!)

    interesting about the security, it looks like ECC is arguably more secure against quantum algorithms? I first learned about all of this stuff about 10 years ago, and I only vaguely remember reading about the pqc resistance. Thanks for the update on that!

    Edit: But I want to be clear I'm not a security expert, just some lady whose had to deal with embedded cryptography from time to time.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    Elliptical curve for RSA was immediately phased out

    what? when did RSA want to use elliptical curves? its a completely different technology. and ECC itself was not phased out of anywhere. certain curves were, not ECC as a whole.

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