Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

bfswa.blog

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 108 posts

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#71

Post by tptacek »

kadoban wrote: post #65
tptacek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot of basic computer science hiding in it that's been remarkably stable for generations of computer scientists, which is not something you can say about asymmetric cryptography.

Is there? Like...kind of, but on the face of it I'd say about the same amount in both. If you look back at DES there's a _lot_ in common with modern ciphers, but like, RSA is still in use and that's old as shit. I think you're right if your point is that we're more likely to see big breaks in asymmetric crypto, but it's kind of based on vibes to me, it's not really clear that it's provable in any way with anything li…

AES doesn't reduce to a fundamental mathematical problem we're uncertain about, in the same way as discrete logs, factoring, the elliptic curve discrete log, or shortest vectors. It's a simpler idea, mathematically: rigorously understood linear operations to propagate key-driven changes quickly, disrupted by nonlinear operations to keep the cipher from being solvable with algebra, driven by a key schedule, and iterated enough times to destroy the signal that differential cryptography (and its analogs) would use to mount attacks.

It's just radically different levels of exposure to mathematical theory.

I'm fond of pointing out that JP Aumasson, who is (unlike me) an academic cryptographer of some repute, believes SHA2 will never be broken.

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#72

Post by SKYNET800 »

cootsnuck wrote: post #70
SKYNET800 wrote: post #67

[flagged]

Please consider taking a break from your use of LLMs. You are clearly deep in the throes of AI psychosis and need to talk to people you trust in your life instead of the chatbots.

Have you seen the code and what it does? It’s science, go and take a look.

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#73

Post by akoboldfrying »

zkmon wrote: post #64
deepsun wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation No, there's no proof that most crypto "calculations" are impossible to reverse. That's why algorithms got weakened by researchers regularly. As of now, it's totally possible someone finds an algorithm to break a next one tomorrow. They just haven't found it yet.

Talking about proofs, there is no proof that just because AI found counter example for a conjecture, it can break math behind cryptography The belief that "if it did A and B it can do C,D,E ,,,Z" is what is driving the current AI hype.

> there is no proof that just because AI found counter example for a conjecture, it can break math behind cryptography

Of course there isn't, nothing like that could be formally proven. But that is neither here nor there.

The important issues remain:

1. Whether some as yet unknown technique exists for efficiently breaking a code.

2. If the answer to (1) is yes, whether LLMs can find it at a reasonable cost.

TTBOMK we still don't know anything about (1). I think the answer to (2) is "probably yes".

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#74

Post by ande-mnoc »

SKYNET800 wrote: post #72
cootsnuck wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please consider taking a break from your use of LLMs. You are clearly deep in the throes of AI psychosis and need to talk to people you trust in your life instead of the chatbots.

Have you seen the code and what it does? It’s science, go and take a look.

You are expecting people to read 25K+ lines of code in a single Python file that is generated by LLM and then translate all the comments written in Russian?

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#75

Post by SKYNET800 »

ande-mnoc wrote: post #74
SKYNET800 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you seen the code and what it does? It’s science, go and take a look.

You are expecting people to read 25K+ lines of code in a single Python file that is generated by LLM and then translate all the comments written in Russian?

DeepSeek In the chat, you can read the entire file; try uploading it there, and it will translate everything that needs to be translated.

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#76

Post by tptacek »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #73
zkmon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about proofs, there is no proof that just because AI found counter example for a conjecture, it can break math behind cryptography The belief that "if it did A and B it can do C,D,E ,,,Z" is what is driving the current AI hype.

> there is no proof that just because AI found counter example for a conjecture, it can break math behind cryptography Of course there isn't, nothing like that could be formally proven. But that is neither here nor there. The important issues remain: 1. Whether some as yet unknown technique exists for efficiently breaking a code. 2. If the answer to (1) is yes, whether LLMs can find it at a reasonable cost. TTBOMK we…

When we're talking about things like AES and SHA2, a common answer among experts to (1) is "probably no".

(That's not a common answer to the same question about, say, ECDLP, even leaving quantum aside).

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#77

Post by [deleted] »

zkmon wrote: post #9

Cryptographic systems are based on 1) mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation, 2) time required for a brute force attack, 3) correctness of algorithms and code used in implementations. The last part (algorithms and code) is where LLMs have a chance. The first one is not similar to the mathematical breakthroughs LLMs are making recently. There is a loss of information in mods and integer c…

[deleted]

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#78

Post by xboxnolifes »

deepsun wrote: post #55
zkmon wrote: post #9

Cryptographic systems are based on 1) mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation, 2) time required for a brute force attack, 3) correctness of algorithms and code used in implementations. The last part (algorithms and code) is where LLMs have a chance. The first one is not similar to the mathematical breakthroughs LLMs are making recently. There is a loss of information in mods and integer c…

> mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation No, there's no proof that most crypto "calculations" are impossible to reverse. That's why algorithms got weakened by researchers regularly. As of now, it's totally possible someone finds an algorithm to break a next one tomorrow. They just haven't found it yet.

> That's why algorithms got weakened by researchers regularly.

That's the 3rd point. correctness of the algorithms.

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#79

Post by ifwinterco »

deepsun wrote: post #55
zkmon wrote: post #9

Cryptographic systems are based on 1) mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation, 2) time required for a brute force attack, 3) correctness of algorithms and code used in implementations. The last part (algorithms and code) is where LLMs have a chance. The first one is not similar to the mathematical breakthroughs LLMs are making recently. There is a loss of information in mods and integer c…

> mathematical impossibility of reversing some integer/mod calculation No, there's no proof that most crypto "calculations" are impossible to reverse. That's why algorithms got weakened by researchers regularly. As of now, it's totally possible someone finds an algorithm to break a next one tomorrow. They just haven't found it yet.

You have a maze (a really, really complicated maze).

Two cases: 1) you have to find a route to the middle 2) someone gives you a route to the middle and you have to validate it

It’s not proven that case 2 is necessarily easier than case 1. But logic and every case in the history of computing suggest that it is.

I don’t see how LLMs could possibly change that fact

Re: LLMs won't break symmetric crypto

#80

Post by adrian_b »

tptacek wrote: post #71
kadoban wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there? Like...kind of, but on the face of it I'd say about the same amount in both. If you look back at DES there's a _lot_ in common with modern ciphers, but like, RSA is still in use and that's old as shit. I think you're right if your point is that we're more likely to see big breaks in asymmetric crypto, but it's kind of based on vibes to me, it's not really clear that it's provable in any way with anything li…

AES doesn't reduce to a fundamental mathematical problem we're uncertain about, in the same way as discrete logs, factoring, the elliptic curve discrete log, or shortest vectors. It's a simpler idea, mathematically: rigorously understood linear operations to propagate key-driven changes quickly, disrupted by nonlinear operations to keep the cipher from being solvable with algebra, driven by a key schedule, and iterat…

For any kind of symmetric encryption method, if you are in the context of a "known-plaintext attack", i.e. where besides the cipher that was used you know both the non-encrypted text and its corresponding encrypted text, if you know a segment of text that is long enough, i.e. longer than the number of bits corresponding to the secret key and of some ancillary information that might be needed, like an initialization vector, the problem of breaking the cipher is known to have a unique solution, because it is equivalent to the solution of a system of equations that has enough equations to determine the unknowns.

However, for a well-designed cipher that system of equations is non-linear and exceedingly complex and it cannot be formulated in any mathematically simple form, therefore no methods of solution are known.

The more rounds are performed inside the encryption algorithm, the more complex that system of equations becomes, and the more unlikely is to find any method to solve it.

Even for the much simpler systems of non-linear equations that occur in physics, when they cannot be linearized even in the neighborhood of each point, then there typically are no better methods of solution than searching randomly through the solution space, which in cryptography corresponds to brute-force search, which is infeasible for big enough secret keys.

Post reply on HN