[danudey]

Sure, but it provides an interesting context. $75k at Amazon's EC2 prices gives you a good idea of what the ballpark is - i.e. reasonably accessible for any large organization, esp. criminal organizations.

If EC2 can collide SHA-1 with $75k of rented GPU time, imagine how trivial it is for an organization willing to buy $100k of dedicated GPU compute hardware to devote to colliding SHA-1 certificates. You don't even have to botnet once you have enough working capital.

Never mind how trivial it is for an organization like the NSA or GCH to do this sort of thing with their existing hardware.

[steckerbrett]

Just to note, with large GPU farms the cost of the power to run them will exceed the hardware cost in a matter of weeks.