[HGI-News] HGI-Seminar, Montag 23.01.2006

[Newsletter des Horst Görtz Instituts]

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                                   Jan Pelzl
                            Ruhr-Universität Bochum


                     Montag, 23.01.2006, 13:15 Uhr, IC 4/39


                       Breaking Ciphers with COPACOBANA -
                     A Cost-Optimized Parallel Code Breaker


Abstract:

Cryptanalysis of symmetric and asymmetric ciphers is computationally
extremely demanding.  Since the security parameters of almost all
practical crypto algorithms are chosen such that attacks with
conventional computers are computationally infeasible, the only
promising way to tackle existing ciphers (assuming no mathematical
breakthrough) is to build special-purpose hardware.  Dedicating those
machines to the task of cryptanalysis holds the promise of a
dramatically improved cost-performance ratio so that breaking of
commercial ciphers comes within reach. This contribution presents the
design and realization of the COPACOBANA (Cost-Optimized Parallel Code
Breaker) machine, which is optimized for running cryptanalytical
algorithms.  The primary design goal was to produce a re-programmable
low-cost design which can be realized for less than US$ 10,000, and
which is applicable for attacking various of today's crypto algorithms.
It will be shown that the architecture outperforms conventional
computers by several orders in magnitude.  Fully configured, COPACOBANA
can host 120 low-cost FPGAs.  In this configuration, the COPACOBANA
hardware is able to, e.g., perform an exhaustive key search of the Data
Encryption Standard (DES) at a rate of more than 2^{45} keys per second,
yielding an average search time of less than nine days.  For this, we
used the high-speed DES engine design of the Université catholique de
Louvain's Crypto Group.  This contribution also describes how COPACOBANA
can be used, in principle, for attacking elliptic curve and
factorization-based schemes such as ECC and RSA. COPACOBANA is intended
to, but not neccessarily restricted to, solving problems related to
cryptanalysis.

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Vorträge im WS 2005-2006


12.09.2005 Nicolas Theriault, CACR, U. of Waterloo
            "Index Calculus Attack for Hyperelliptic Curves"

24.10.2005 Roberto Avanzi, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und HGI
            "Recent Progress in implementation of hyperelliptic
             curves over binary fields"

31.10.2005 Carlos Coronado, TU Darmstadt
            "The Merkle multi-time signature scheme:
             Its security, efficiency and improvements"

07.11.2005 Gregor Leander, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und HGI
            "Rabbit in the Hat Proofs
                          or
             Finding Implicit Representations"

14.11.2005 Sebastian Gajek, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und HGI
            "Towards a half year of A-I3: A preliminary report
                          or
             Identity fraud on the Internet"

21.11.2005 Michael Tuexen, FH Münster
            "Security related issues of SCTP"

Zweiteiliges Miniseminar -- Mini-Seminar in two parts
Contributory Group Key Agreement Protocols for Mobile Ad Hoc Groups

05.12.2005 Lijun Liao, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und HGI
            Part 1 - Erster Teil
              "TFAN: Tree-based Group Key Agreement Framework
                       for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks"

12.12.2005 Mark Manulis, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und HGI
            Part 2 - Zweiter Teil
             "Key Agreement in Heterogeneous Mobile Ad Hoc Groups"

19.12.2005 Thomas Dullien, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und Sabre Security
            "Attacks on uninitialized local variables"

16.01.2006 Axel Poschmann, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und HGI
            "DLX - A Compact New DESX Variant"

23.01.2006 Jan Pelzl, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und HGI
            "Breaking Ciphers with COPACOBANA -
             A Cost-Optimized Parallel Code Breaker"

30.01.2006 Roberto Avanzi, Ruhr-Universität Bochum und HGI
            TBA

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Prof. Dr. Roberto Avanzi
Faculty for Mathematics
Ruhr-University Bochum
44780 Bochum, Germany

URL:   http://www.cits.rub.de
         http://www.rub.de/hgi