[Novalug] linux update security?

[Nino Pereira]

Don,

an md5 hash is 128
>>> bits long, so there are 2^128 different md5 hashes,  and 2^128 is
>> also the number of different 16-byte files.
>>
>> But this problem is only theoretical, very, very theoretical. 2^128 is an
>> such an enormously large number, about 10^(128/3) or 10^40, 
> 
> I think your number is a little off.
> 

>   2 to the 128 is       3.402823669e+38    {that's a lot of zeros}

I concede: I over-estimated about 30 times, but then again,
what's a few orders of magnitude between
friends and for the purpose of this estimate: to show
that the number of possibilities in the MD5 hash
is ridiculously large.

So, my 1 Tb disk drives cover the world's surface only to a depth
of 3 km, not 100 km. Do you care? I don't.

On the national depth: if you'd tax financial wizards who earn 30 M$
per year properly, at 30 %, you'd need no more than half a million
of those people and the debt is paid.

;-)

Nino