Hello Ron
***OFF THE WIRE***
Certicom Announces Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC) Challenge Winner
Notre Dame Mathematician Solves ECCp-109 Encryption Key Problem Issued in
1997
MISSISSAUGA, ON, Nov. 6 /CNW/ - Certicom Corporation (TSX: CIC), a
leading provider of wireless security solutions, today announced that Chris
Monico and his team of mathematicians from Notre Dame have successfully solved
the Certicom ECCp-109 Challenge. The challenge was solved utilizing a massive
amount of computing power including 10,000 computers (mostly PCs) running 24
hours a day for 549 days.
"Without a doubt, this is one of the world's largest single math
computations ever completed," said Chris Monico, a post doctorate researcher
in mathematics at Notre Dame. "Cracking this code was a massive undertaking in
terms of time, resources and CPU cycles. It has been the most difficult
elliptic curve discrete algorithm problem ever computed."
Issued by Certicom in 1997, the ECC Challenge has attracted some of the
world's leading cryptographers, mathematicians and computer scientists
comprising of some 247 teams with 10,308 individual members. This first of its
kind challenge was designed to encourage further research into security
standards while placing ECC under third party scrutiny where individuals and
organizations can freely test the technology. The knowledge and experience
gained from this challenge will help confirm comparisons of the security
levels of public key systems such as ECC, RSA and DSA that have been based
primarily on theoretical considerations.
"We issued the ECC 109 challenge to demonstrate a real world example of
how difficult it would be to solve a single instance of an ECC key even at a
low strength," said Dr. Scott Vanstone, Founder and Executive VP Strategic
Technology for Certicom. "The ECC 109-bit problem was solved in the manner and
timeframe we predicted. This challenge also validates the security strength of
ECC because the key solved was well below the commercial standards our clients
use today which is ECC 163 or higher. If someone were to try and solve ECC
163, it would be approximately one hundred million times harder to solve than
ECC 109."
Chris Monico will receive a $10,000 US prize for solving the ECC 109
Challenge. He will donate $8,000 to the Free Software Foundation while giving
Meunier Gerard and B.J. Smith $1,000 each for their contribution to the
problem.
Certicom is offering $20,000 US in prize money for the solution to the
next challenge. It is expected that the ECC 131 Challenge will require several
thousand times more computing power than the ECCp-109 Challenge. For more
information on the ECC 131 Challenge, visit
certicom.com.
Certicom is a pioneer in the development and growth of ECC as a wireless
security standard. The company was first to bring this powerful and efficient
form of public-key cryptography to market with the introduction of its
Security Builder toolkit back in 1997. ECC is particularly beneficial in
applications where bandwidth, processing, or battery power is constrained such
as security for handhelds, mobile middleware and other embedded devices.
Today, Certicom Developer Toolkits give OEMs and developers the ability
to add strong, standards-based security to wireless devices and applications
without impacting performance and usability while the movian security
applications give companies the ability to extend mission critical enterprise
applications to mobile professionals by providing secure wireless access. For
more information on Certicom wireless security solutions, visit
www.certicom.com.
About Certicom
Certicom is a leading provider of wireless security solutions, enabling
developers, governments and enterprises to add strong security to their
devices, networks and applications. Designed for constrained devices,
Certicom's patented technologies are unsurpassed in delivering the strongest
cryptography with the smallest impact on performance and usability. Certicom
products are currently licensed to more than 300 customers including Texas
Instruments, Palm, Research In Motion, Cisco Systems, Oracle and Motorola.
Founded in 1985, Certicom is headquartered in Mississauga, ON, Canada, with
offices in Ottawa, ON; Herndon, VA; San Mateo, CA; and London, England. Visit
www.certicom.com.
Certicom, Security Builder, SSL Plus, Trustpoint, movianVPN, movianCrypt
are trademarks or registered trademarks of Certicom Corp. All other companies
and products listed herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their
respective holders.
Except for historical information contained herein, this news release
contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties.
Actual results may differ materially. Factors that might cause a difference
include, but are not limited to, those relating to the acceptance of mobile
and wireless devices and the continued growth of e-commerce and m-commerce,
the increase of the demand for mutual authentication in m-commerce
transactions, the acceptance of Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) technology
as an industry standard, the market acceptance of our principal products and
sales of our customer's products, the impact of competitive products and
technologies, the possibility of our products infringing patents and other
intellectual property of fourth parties, and costs of product development.
Certicom will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or
circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential
factors that could affect Certicom's financial results is included in the
documents Certicom files from time to time with the Canadian securities
regulatory authorities.
Regards
Vaughn |
