Same here and thats what I did, I certainly recommend it.

 

I don't buy it. Are u saying that the p2p programs are using our resources to help decrypt the code or what? I think I would notice if my computer would be idling at 100% cpu usage. I think its crap but if u can please enlighten me some more.

 

I am not saying they are, they might be. Its the simplest way of doing it, when you are downloading something from a P2P you are not aware what its doing in the background. It doesn't take much on todays machine to run an algorithm. The P2P programs also are the greatest set of computers ever, a check on Kazaa revealed 1,000,000 users. Thats a lot of computing power if you think of it.

 

since DES is an open standard, everyone in the world can have access to how DES messages are encrpyted. however it is so complicated, that decrypting it by hand is pretty much impossible. designing a machine to decrypt it has been done, but even with computing power today would take several days at the least to decipher the key used for encryption. so while technically possible to break DES encryption, several days is more than enough time for organizations to switch keys around and render the stolen key useless.

so even tho DES is an open standard and there are better schemes available, it is still widely used and considered the standard encryption scheme.

kazaa does it. regular kazaa, not kazaa lite/k++.. it's widely known that the original kazaa installs spyware on your machine that runs in the background generally without the user's knowledge. where have you been?

also, because of the endless amounts of security holes in internet explorer, windows and outlook, there are a lot of worms and spyware that can get into your system without you knowing it (use opera!). running spyware removal software regularly is a must

 

The key may be changeable, but with around 1 million + users in P2P programs thats a lot more resources. If in 1999 it took 22 hrs on 100,000 pcs it'll probably take 2 hrs with the pcs of today. My message is to be careful, remember there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. A lot of you may think you know it all about computers and security, but you really know maybe 0.01%.

 

Useless except on every since message the cracker has waiting to be decrypted. Sure, it's easy to change things around afterwards but for sensitive information it's a horrible idea.

 

you're right, i looked up some things and found your 1999 example. DES is vulnerable in that sense. 3DES is still relatively secure, however, even given the level of computing power available today. this is the reason why AES and other encryption algorithms have not found as solid of a market as DES. 3DES will eventually be overcome as computers get faster and faster, but for now DES (and all it's permutations) remains pretty much the standard. if you can provide contrary evidence i'd like to hear it.

 

i don't understand a word that post :thinking:

changing an encryption key on a regular basis is not a horrible idea for sensitive information. in fact it's one of the best ideas, no matter what kind of key-based encryption scheme(s) you're using. i don't know where you're getting that idea from.
:screwy:

 

All the messages the hacker has stored use the old key. So it doesn't matter if you change your keys daily, all the hacker has to do it store your encrypted data on his hard drive until he breaks the keys.

DES is the bad idea I was speaking of.

 

then there would be no point of sending any encrypted message in the first place, because any person could just store the message on his hard drive until he breaks the encryption. in a vast majority of cases, the security of your information is only as secure as your keys/passwords. keep those secure and your system and data will be too. regularly changing passwords and keys is a fundamental security precaution. it's one of the first things you learn in a computer security class when you start learning about encryption and passwords.

DES by itself may not be the best idea, but 3DES is still pretty secure. breaking an encryption key is incredible difficult given almost all modern encryption schemes still in use today (including DES). that's why in the vast majority of cases, hackers attempting to gain access to encrypted information would probably unanimously prefer to just steal a key or a password, NOT break the encryption.