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Next: The key tester Up: Stage 9 Previous: Initial Knowledge

Work Description

DES has been around since 1976, and no significant weaknesses have been discovered. No algorithm significantly better than trying all the 256 possible keys have been discovered. With the 8 bits from the clue, the search space is reduced to 248 = 281474976710656 keys. Brute force seemed to be the only option for this stage, and we immediately started on two tasks:

Up to now we felt that we had made progress, and in order to start this monster run as soon as possible we split the implementation between three people: Staffan created the server, Fredrik wrote a screensaver client, and Gunnar implemented the key tester.

 


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