would it be fair to say...

["RiX Nu¥eN" <thereturn@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

that the two most common attacks on cryptographic systems are:
1. attacking the key (getting it in plaintext)or the key exchange system 
(man in the middle attacks, exploiting trust relationships)

2. taking advantage of reduced key spaces to brute force keys.

the second one can be fixed with better implementations. but how do you 
prevent the first? esp. in satellite/wireless based systems. (like directv) 
for example if you were to use a key exchange system in satellite/ground 
network one could float a balloon between the ground and the satellite and 
man in the middle that way...

i'm just wondering because it seems like by moving away from wires (hell 
even moving from switched to routed) that one is *reducing* the amount of 
trust they have with any given peer.

-RiX

p.s would it also be far to say that keys naturally get weaker over time 
simply because processing ability improves? (i'm sure some designers take 
this into account but what if there is something they don't know about?)

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