Timeline for Have any cryptographic breaks been executed in the real world since World War II?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
43 events
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| Apr 7, 2023 at 0:12 | comment | added | President James K. Polk |
While not an encryption system and thus not in play by your definition, the Sony ECDSA break relied on mathematical weakness in DSA and ECDSA that happens when the secret k value is repeated. As a result, Sony's private ECDSA key was recovered and the authentication scheme it protected was rendered completely broken.
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| Mar 4, 2022 at 2:13 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | There are several excellent answers to my question that I think fully meet my requirements, but unfortunately I can only accept one, so I accepted the one that I think most clearly meets them. | |
| Mar 4, 2022 at 2:12 | vote | accept | Very Tiny Brain | ||
| Mar 1, 2022 at 3:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackCrypto/status/1498493429764001804 | ||
| Feb 25, 2022 at 3:06 | answer | added | Mark Schultz-Wu♦ | timeline score: 1 | |
| Feb 25, 2022 at 0:14 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @NickMyra I don't know, was it? I've never heard of this; can you provide any further details? | |
| Feb 25, 2022 at 0:07 | history | edited | Very Tiny Brain | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 24, 2022 at 19:37 | comment | added | Nick Myra | Throwing a potential answer into the ring, by means of a leading question ... Was the DoD encryption of high resolution position data in early releases of the GPS system ever broken? | |
| Feb 24, 2022 at 7:16 | answer | added | New User | timeline score: 2 | |
| Feb 24, 2022 at 5:19 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @Mazura Definitely not, if you require that the crack was used in the real world before the weakness was detected and the algorithm retired. | |
| Feb 24, 2022 at 2:08 | comment | added | Mazura | Wouldn't the list of cryptographies that haven't been cracked be shorter? | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 19:54 | comment | added | Martin Bonner supports Monica | @verytinybrain Daniel J Bernstein, author of Salsa20, ChaCha20, Poly1305, Curve25519 | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 18:23 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @MartinBonnersupportsMonica Who is djb? | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 16:41 | comment | added | Martin Bonner supports Monica | @VeryTinyBrain djb thinks it is worth designing algorithms to be resistant to side-channel attacks. | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 16:18 | comment | added | Micka | blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2015/07/20/… | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 15:38 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @PabloH They are certainly "normal" in the sense of being common, but the whole point of my question is to identify the less common "in-channel" attacks. Also, I don't think it really makes sense to design an algorithm to be resistant to side-channel attacks, which (more or less by definition) target weaknesses in the low-level implementation details rather than the high-level algorithm itself. It takes a very different skill set to design a secure algorithm from a secure implementation, and so you'd probably want separate experts in charge of each. | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 13:56 | comment | added | Pablo H | I think nowadays side-channel attacks are (or should be) considered normal cryptographic attacks, are just one more of possible attacks cryptographic algorithms should be resistant to. | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 13:16 | comment | added | Stef | "I know that the line between an "implementation error" and a "fundamental weakness" is somewhat subjective, but a good rule of thumb is that if the latter is publicly revealed, then the basic cipher can't easily be fixed up and must be abandoned." I think that this rule of thumb actually rules out the Bletchley Park breaks... | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 10:56 | comment | added | James Snell | @VeryTinyBrain - Austen was right, I was checking the Enigma break actually fulfilled your first criteria, since it was predominantly a break in usage not "a true cryptographic break". | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 5:50 | answer | added | John Deters | timeline score: 8 | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 4:14 | answer | added | Mark | timeline score: 28 | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 2:48 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | ... correctly. But it at least would have been much harder. By contrast, the Japanese Purple cipher seems to have been intrinsically weak and capable of being broken even when operated perfectly, and it was broken by "textbook" cryptanalysis rather than exploiting implementation errors. | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 2:46 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @AustinHemmelgarn I'm far from an expert, but some quick Wikipedia browsing indicates that Enigma was a bit of a borderline case. Historically, you're right that the Ultra mathematicians took advantages of numerous implementation errors on the Germans' part. The underlying algorithm itself was pretty strong but not perfect, and certainly wouldn't be considered up to snuff by today's standards (even without powerful computers). Expert opinion seems to be that it's very unlikely, but not completely impossible, that the Allies would have been able to break Enigma if the Germans had operated it... | |
| Feb 23, 2022 at 2:01 | history | edited | Very Tiny Brain | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 23, 2022 at 1:53 | history | edited | Very Tiny Brain | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 22, 2022 at 23:05 | comment | added | Austin Hemmelgarn | I second the assertion that the Ultra programme probably does not meet criterion #1, at least for the enigma machines, as that wasn’t really a break as much as it was a huge series of attacks exploiting procedural issues in German usage of the machines. I don’t know enough about the Japanese type B cipher machine to comment on that side of things. | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 21:31 | answer | added | silverduck | timeline score: 0 | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 17:50 | answer | added | Fabio says Reinstate Monica | timeline score: 22 | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 15:51 | comment | added | V2Blast | @VeryTinyBrain: My reading of James' comment is that it's suggesting that the Ultra example doesn't fulfill criterion #1. (I don't really know enough to judge whether that claim is correct, though.) | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 14:04 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @JamesSnell On second reading, I can't tell whether your comment is nominating a candidate, or casting skepticism on whether Ultra satisfies my criteria. But yes, known-plaintext attacks are very much in scope for my question; I'm not just restricting to ciphertext-only attacks. | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 14:00 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @JamesSnell Yes, the Ultra program is the paradigmatic example of what I'm talking about, but I'm wondering about any subsequent examples. | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 13:59 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @fgrieu I don't know the exact details of the crypto AG compromise, but my understanding is that that was more of a (deliberate) implementation error than a fundamental weakness in the algorithm. E.g. the U.S. machines were very similar and were (at the time) fully secure. I don't think I'll require that the crypto was believed extremely secure at the time, but "bonus points" if so. | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 13:38 | comment | added | James Snell | Does the Ultra programme itself count? Enigma was defeated by a "Known-Plaintext" attack just like the 'Purple' cipher used by the Japanese. | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 10:04 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Feb 22, 2022 at 7:16 | comment | added | fgrieu♦ | Would intentionally rigged crypto count? E.g. crypto AG's machines? Also, is it a requirement that the crypto was believed extremely secure by those who designed/selected it, which would severely narrow the choice? No reasonable person would trust that was the case of simple DES, A5/1 or WEP (which stated security goal was fairly low). | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 6:04 | answer | added | fgrieu♦ | timeline score: 29 | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 4:03 | answer | added | poncho | timeline score: 55 | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 2:36 | review | Close votes | |||
| Mar 1, 2022 at 3:01 | |||||
| Feb 22, 2022 at 2:27 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | This source claims that this "is not where real-world attacks generally occur." I'm wondering whether real-world attacks ever occur here (as far as we know). | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 2:22 | comment | added | Very Tiny Brain | @mentallurg All the results of that search return examples of failures of cryptocurrencies, which has nothing to do with my question, which is about the cryptographic algorithms themselves. | |
| Feb 22, 2022 at 2:20 | comment | added | mentallurg | What have you done so far? Simple googling for "great crypto failures" provides many relevant results. I suggest to close the question. | |
| S Feb 22, 2022 at 2:04 | review | First questions | |||
| Feb 22, 2022 at 5:42 | |||||
| S Feb 22, 2022 at 2:04 | history | asked | Very Tiny Brain | CC BY-SA 4.0 |