I think some of us know considerably less about cryptography than you do. I think sketerpot’s suggestion was based on the assumption that most of the work would just be done by the computer and that the hacker could just sit back and relax while his two laptops went to work on the encryptions (you know, like in movies!). If the hacker needs to spend a month of his/her time (rather than computer time) to complete the decryption, then I see what you’re talking about.
The assumption that most of the work would be done by the computer is correct. Perhaps sketerpot was assuming that breaking a decryption key is an operation that’s impossible to parallelize (i.e. two computers both working on a single key would be no better than just one computer doing so), whereas I’m pretty sure that two computers would do the job twice as fast as one computer.
I think some of us know considerably less about cryptography than you do. I think sketerpot’s suggestion was based on the assumption that most of the work would just be done by the computer and that the hacker could just sit back and relax while his two laptops went to work on the encryptions (you know, like in movies!). If the hacker needs to spend a month of his/her time (rather than computer time) to complete the decryption, then I see what you’re talking about.
The assumption that most of the work would be done by the computer is correct. Perhaps sketerpot was assuming that breaking a decryption key is an operation that’s impossible to parallelize (i.e. two computers both working on a single key would be no better than just one computer doing so), whereas I’m pretty sure that two computers would do the job twice as fast as one computer.
Ah, yes. That makes sense. Thanks for your patience.