No. So far you have a statement with no support. You will find websites that claim AES is broken. To my knowledge, this is false: none have submitted a proof to a refereed journal or conference.
Indeed. I remember a third year "number theory and cryptography" class at university (1993/4) when the lecturer got suddenly really excited because some chap had said he'd developed a proof of Fermat's last theorum. He did point out that people would be checking it thoroughly to see how rigid a proof it was, and until then he'd wait and see. I think this falls into the same category. It'd be a good thing to look at the potential problems should the Chinese team have mnaged to break SHA1, but let's not panic yet. Tom. -- Tom Knight System Administration Officer Arts & Humanities Data Service Web: http://www.ahds.ac.uk Email: tom.knight@ahds.ac.uk