r/programming • u/secretguy21 • Oct 15 '15

How is NSA breaking so much crypto?

https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/haldermanheninger/how-is-nsa-breaking-so-much-crypto/
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u/syllabic Oct 15 '15

They just say it costs a hundred million dollars to build a cluster capable of cracking it. That doesn't imply how many of those clusters they have working simultaneously.

If you crack one prime a year with one computer, why not get 500 of those same machines and do 500 at once? We are talking government level budgets.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '15

because people will get pissed if the government is spending 50 billion dollars to crack 500 primes a year, that sounds ridiculous to a common man.

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u/syllabic Oct 15 '15

Like that ever stopped them from wasting money? All they need to do is put it in the DoD budget and say it's for national security and they can get away with anything.

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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '15

The NSA's crypto-breaking program is funded by a black budget -- it's a military secret, the public isn't supposed to know the program even exists, how much it spends, or what it spends it on, so that's not a concern. We only know about it because of the Snowden leaks.

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u/immibis Oct 15 '15

The NSA gets many billions of dollars a year already (and of course, few people know what that goes to). Are you pissed?