RFC 3607 (rfc3607) - Page 1 of 8

Chinese Lottery Cryptanalysis Revisited: The Internet as a Codebreaking Tool

Network Working Group                                           M. Leech
Request for Comments: 3607                               Nortel Networks
Category: Informational                                   September 2003


               Chinese Lottery Cryptanalysis Revisited:
                  The Internet as a Codebreaking Tool

Status of this Memo

   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  It does
   not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of this
   memo is unlimited.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2003).  All Rights Reserved.

Abstract

   This document revisits the so-called Chinese Lottery
   massively-parallel cryptanalytic attack.  It explores Internet-based
   analogues to the Chinese Lottery, and their potentially-serious
   consequences.

1.  Introduction

   In 1991, Quisquater and Desmedt [DESMEDT91] proposed an esoteric, but
   technically sound, attack against DES or similar ciphers.  They
   termed this attack the Chinese Lottery.  It was based on a
   massively-parallel hardware approach, using consumer electronics as
   the "hosts" of the cipher-breaking hardware.

   In the decade since Quisquater and Desmedt proposed their Chinese
   Lottery thought experiment, there has been considerable growth in a
   number of areas that make their thought experiment worth revisiting.

   In 1991, the Internet had approximately 8 million reachable hosts
   attached to it and in 2002, the number is a staggering 100 million
   reachable hosts.  In the time since the Chinese Lottery paper,
   computer power available to the average desktop user has grown by a
   factor of approximately 150.









Leech                        Informational