Jesse Hammons wrote:
So to clarify: If I generate a 65-bit key, will I be able to use that 65-bit key to sign any 64-bit value?
Yes, but a 65 bit key won't be very secure AT ALL, it will be very easy to factor a modulus that small. Bottom line: asymmetrical (public-key) encryption has a fairly large "minimum block size" that actually increases as key size increases.
This was the killer of an application I was working on some years ago. I tried to redo the design in Elliptic Curve encryption, which (as you probably know) achieves the same security with a somewhat smaller key size.
HOWEVER. All the EC methods I studied required TWO group members to be sent in each message, which doubles the message size. If anybody knows an EC method where I can send just one object, you could resurrect my application :-)
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Charles B (Ben) Cranston mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.wam.umd.edu/~zben
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