Work Description

DES has been around since 1976, and no significant weaknesses have been discovered. No algorithm significantly better than trying all the 2⁵⁶ possible keys have been discovered. With the 8 bits from the clue, the search space is reduced to 2⁴⁸ = 281474976710656 keys. Brute force seemed to be the only option for this stage, and we immediately started on two tasks:

• Implementing an efficient key tester.

• Creating a distributed system where a central server distributed jobs to a large set of client computers.

Up to now we felt that we had made progress, and in order to start this monster run as soon as possible we split the implementation between three people: Staffan created the server, Fredrik wrote a screensaver client, and Gunnar implemented the key tester.