I am taking another course on security and today we went over the whole fall of DES in 1999. (Already knew it so I spent the greater part of the lecture thinking.) I did this whole rant last year, it got some interesting discussions going. Please refrain from using dumb comments because this is a serious issue that most of you don't care about because you don't know about it.

We all use P2P software, most of us don't even know what goes on in the background. We all think we are super elite computer savvy guys, but the truth is most P2P programs have little tiny backdoor programs that most of us can't see. Our government spends millions on security each year and yet we as citizens are doing nothing to help. In 1999 it took 100,000 computers of average speed 100 Mhz 22hrs to break a DES encrypted message by brute force. Why is DES special? Until very recently it was the standard for all things security - credit cards, banking, etc. Today there are many more computers that are faster, making the whole P2P network one seriously badass super computer. Sure they moved to 3DES but thats just encryping with DES 3 times, makes it a little more secure but still very breakable.

Right now as you are browsing this forum downloading porn or music do you know what is going on back there? Your pc is probably one in a daisy chain of computers running code trying to find quicker ways to break standard security. Most schools have online systems for everything related to you as an individual. Most of those systems are very vulnerable and yet no measures are taken to protect them better. Most students still use the generic passwords, usually a combination of your day of birth and SSN. Its scary when you think with a little social engineering you can easily get the day of birth of a person.

Many of us on this forum are fighting wars in foreign soils trying to protect our freedom. Yet the same people who land accolades on these soldiers are sitting there helping cyberterrorism. This is a rather double edged sword, on one hand the industry with its pricing has forced the average person to seek other means to find software/music/movies. And on the other seeking these resources in the most common ways has proven to be detrimental to security as we know it.

Is there a solution? Hell if I knew that I'd have something to do my thesis on.