

This answer closely relates to: Need software to wacth dstv channels free on strong decoder 4996x. EPFL researchers’ success is not likely to be misused.2. However, we need not panic this system has not yet been deployed. Whereas it was believed that it would take 40’000 times the age of the universe for all computers on the planet to do it!” explains Thorsten Kleinjung, post-doctoral fellow at LACAL. “We proved that it would only take two hours for EPFL computers to solve a problem of this kind. Therefore, an EPFL team, together with Jens Zumbragel from TU Dresden, focused on a "family" of algorithms presented as candidates for the next generation of encryption keys, which made use of "supersingular curves. Nothing suggested that they could crack the industrial variants. However, these methods only managed to overcome a very particular type of discrete logarithm. Antoine Joux, a French Scientist, independently had similar insights, and together with a French team then showed how to make the second and final phase `very nearly' easy. Then, many other cryptographers stepped in. Robert Granger, then at University College Dublin but who has since joined LACAL, showed that surprisingly the problem's first phase can be solved very easily. In fact, a little over a year ago, cracks began to appear. If someone were to find out how to solve them all, the entire system would collapse." "The danger lies in the fact that these systems are based on principles that we do not fully understand, states Arjen Lenstra. "Their complexity is such that they are deemed as impossible to solve." Due to their effectiveness, the industry, especially banks, makes use of them for encoding their transactions. "There are several variants, based for example on prime numbers or other mathematical formulas, explains Arjen Lenstra, director of the Laboratory for Cryptologic Algorithms (LACAL) at EPFL. Most of them rely on "discrete logarithm problems" – very complex mathematical operations – to secure data transmissions. In universities, research in hacking aim mostly at testing their robustness. Security systems developed to protect the communication privacy between the seller and the buyer are the prime targets for hackers of all kinds, hence making it necessary for encryption algorithms to be regularly strengthened. Without cryptography, no one would dare to type their credit card number on the Internet.
