27/02 - The Institut für Telematik (Institute for
Telematics): "For the time being, the security of the Internet is
in no danger of a 'crackable' locking procedure"
Trier. The application of longer
keys and the development of new locking procedures continue to
guarantee confidentiality of data exchange via Internet. This
reassuring statement came from the Trier professor of information
science, Christoph Meinel, in his response to a report published in
the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. In this report, "chaos"
was expected if a US mathematician, Daniel J. Bernstein, would
manage to crack into the locked RSA system with his newly conceived
computer. For 25 years, it has been the world's most important
business principle of e-commerce and has been based on the fact
that large numbers can only be divided into their prime factors
with costly computing. Bernstein's announcement caused quite a fuss
among experts.
"Even if the US mathematician has really managed to
factorize, at equal cost, three times as large natural numbers than
before, hackers and secret services would still not have a "digital
general key" at hand," says Meinel. The director of the Trier
autonomous Institute for Telematics (www.telematik-institut.org) also points out
that cryptologists, i.e. ciphering experts, are also involved in a
permanent race between the procedures and counter-procedures: "The
RSA procedure has been helping us for 25 years. Now there are new
efforts being made in order to develop new systems which will meet
the requirements," says Meinel.
The head of the non-profit Internet research and
development center, also points to the fact that the future quantum
computers will challenge the present locking technique. Frankly,
these computers and their high performance are still twinkle in the
eye, says Meinel. As the second part of the double strategy to
secure both corporate and private confidential communication via
Internet, the Trier scientist recommends first of all to adjust to
a longer key. According to the Professor, users are safe with
2048-digit numbers in computers as an adequate method of binary
recording (2048 bit). At the moment, most data protected by the RSA
technique is coded by means of 1024-bit keys. According to
newspaper reports, even the government information security service
in Bonn pleads for the use of the 2048-bit long key by the year
2006 at the latest.
The organizational structure and orientation of this
registered extra-university and non-profit association make the
Institute for Telematics the only one of its kind in Germany. After
the first four years of hard work, the Institute can boast of great
achievements: Two patents, four graduations and more than 80 expert
presentations at international conferences. The team of some 50
staff members, headed by the Professor Christoph Meinel (48), is
developing user-friendly and practical high-tech solutions.
M-commerce, Internet/Intranet, open network data communication
security, telemedicine, electronic publishing, system designs and
analysis are the present fields of activity of this Trier-based,
yet internationally renowned top institute.
