PMC Ciphers launches again a challenge to break a short key - this time for the improved standards-based Polymorphic Medley Cipher. The key is as short as 38 bit. The challenge will end on April 02, 2013. The task is to crack the passphrase of an encrypted PDF file. The hyperlinks to the PDF file, as well as to the C++ source code of the cipher, are readily available for free at pmc-ciphers.com. The first who breaks the key before April 02, 2013, can pick up the price: 4.428 ounces of gold worth approximately US-$ 7000.
The Polymorphic Medley is a Polymorphic Cascade Cipher with a variable key size of 128 .. 1024 bit using the popular AES, Twofish, Serpent, Cast-256, RC6, SEED, Camellia and Anubis encryption functions in up to 16 million different cipher combinations.
The password consists of up to six characters "a..z", "A..Z", but as well the following characters are equally possible: >, <, |, ,, (comma), ., -, _, #, ', +, ~, *, ^, °, !, ", §, $, %, &, /, (, ),= ,?, {, }, [, ]. There exist approximately 282 billion equally possible key combinations, which corresponds with 38 bit.
“The improved open-source Polymorphic Medley Cipher Version 2 is royalty-free and can protect data efficiently, even if the length of the key is extremely short. I am confident that we’ll be able to show this through this challenge. Due to the improvements that we’ve implemented in the cipher, the value of the prize could be increased noticeably. The improved cipher is much more immune to attacks that involve general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPU) on a large scale. PMC Ciphers organizes public code breaking challenges with extremely short passwords pretty regularly and so far the prize always went unclaimed. Everybody on this planet can potentially participate. It’s the most unbiased way to get peer review. We’re very confident that the cipher will be implemented in a number of civil projects that require a hardened AES cipher", says C.B. Roellgen from PMC Ciphers.
On April 02, 2013 will the password be published on the home page of PMC Ciphers (www.pmc-ciphers.com), so that everybody who is interested can easily decrypt the PDF file and check the key.
More information and can be found at:
http://www.pmc-ciphers.com
The Polymorphic Medley is a Polymorphic Cascade Cipher with a variable key size of 128 .. 1024 bit using the popular AES, Twofish, Serpent, Cast-256, RC6, SEED, Camellia and Anubis encryption functions in up to 16 million different cipher combinations.
The password consists of up to six characters "a..z", "A..Z", but as well the following characters are equally possible: >, <, |, ,, (comma), ., -, _, #, ', +, ~, *, ^, °, !, ", §, $, %, &, /, (, ),= ,?, {, }, [, ]. There exist approximately 282 billion equally possible key combinations, which corresponds with 38 bit.
“The improved open-source Polymorphic Medley Cipher Version 2 is royalty-free and can protect data efficiently, even if the length of the key is extremely short. I am confident that we’ll be able to show this through this challenge. Due to the improvements that we’ve implemented in the cipher, the value of the prize could be increased noticeably. The improved cipher is much more immune to attacks that involve general-purpose graphics processing units (GPGPU) on a large scale. PMC Ciphers organizes public code breaking challenges with extremely short passwords pretty regularly and so far the prize always went unclaimed. Everybody on this planet can potentially participate. It’s the most unbiased way to get peer review. We’re very confident that the cipher will be implemented in a number of civil projects that require a hardened AES cipher", says C.B. Roellgen from PMC Ciphers.
On April 02, 2013 will the password be published on the home page of PMC Ciphers (www.pmc-ciphers.com), so that everybody who is interested can easily decrypt the PDF file and check the key.
More information and can be found at:
http://www.pmc-ciphers.com
