Fujitsu Cracks Next-Gen Cryptography Standard

[runeks]

Isn't the point that as long as we use sufficiently large key sizes, it doesn't matter?

No, because ECDSA and RSA are based on problems that are considered hard in today's mathematics. That does not preclude them from being easy in future mathematics. The underlying assumptions of discrete logarithms and integer factorizations are that they will remain hard, but there is no guarantee.

And then of course the whole quantum computing thing.

My point was that a successfully retrieving a private key from a public key isn't a problem if it's done by brute force (and not some novel new way that reduces the hardness of that operation), and the key sizes involved are significantly smaller than what we use.

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[allten]

Thanks to the OP.

That was interesting.

Here's my Quick summary:
    They broke what is called Pairing Based Cryptography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pairing-based_cryptography
The press release from NICT can be found here:
http://www.nict.go.jp/en/press/2012/06/18en-1.html


Remember, we are using ECDSA and every public key is buried under the sha-256 hash and RIPEMD-160 hash.
As long as you never store value on a key that has already been used where ECDSA public is now known by all, you would be relatively safe.

If methods were found that made ECDSA significantly weaker, it would still be extremely difficult and very expensive if not impossible to steal from anyone that never reuses a key.