BW: Global Effort Solves Elliptic Curve Crypto Challenge…

“Irish mathematician Robert Harley announced today the solution
to the seventh and most difficult Certicom ECC Challenge problem so
far. The solution was arrived at by 195 volunteers in 20 countries
after 40 days of calculation distributed on 740 computers.”

“This computation, coordinated from INRIA (the French National
Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control), has
confirmed theoretical predictions that a 97-bit code based on
elliptic curves is harder to break than a 512-bit code based on
factorization such as RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman). “Our results
increase confidence in codes based on properly-chosen elliptic
curves, and should be taken into account in standards for Internet
security,” said Mr. Harley…”

“The “ECC2-97 problem” involved a set of nearly 10 to the
29th points on an elliptic curve chosen by Certicom. The
participants attacked ECC2-97 by calculating 119,248,522,782,547
(well over 10 to the 14th) of the points using open-source software
developed by Mr. Harley. Of these, 127,492 “distinguished”
points were filtered out and collected on an Alpha Linux
workstation at INRIA near Versailles, France. A final phase of
processing selected two matching points and, using some attached
information, calculated the solution to the challenge thereby
delivering the coup de grace to the most difficult elliptic curve
problem ever.”

Complete Press Release