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- Newsgroups: sci.crypt
- Path: sparky!uunet!pmafire!mica.inel.gov!guinness!gozer.idbsu.edu!betz
- From: betz@gozer.idbsu.edu (Andrew Betz)
- Subject: Re: Status of DES, or "Is the DES Standard PD?"
- Message-ID: <1992Dec16.161414.22709@guinness.idbsu.edu>
- Sender: usenet@guinness.idbsu.edu (Usenet News mail)
- Nntp-Posting-Host: gozer
- Organization: SigSauer Fan Club
- References: <Bz98An.BLJ@dcs.ed.ac.uk> <9212142000.AA46814@chaos.intercon.com>
- Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 16:14:14 GMT
- Lines: 36
-
- In article <9212142000.AA46814@chaos.intercon.com> amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker) writes:
- >This seems fairly simple to me. With the ability to build fast custom
- >hardware (certainly within the NSA's capabilities :)), a brute-force search
- >of the keyspace of DES is *much* more computationally tractable than it is
- >for RSA. That is to say, DES does not represent a strategic barrier to an
-
- i would agree. if the government "pushes" a particular encryption
- scheme, it's probably because they're able to crack it.
-
- >DES was never billed as anything more than a cipher system that was good
- >enough for most applications. I think it still serves as such, and at this
- >point I, at least, am confident that it's exactly what it's advertised to be.
- >I am also confident that the NSA and many of their international counterparts
- >can routinely read DES-encoded traffic.
- >
- DES is certainly good enough to stop casual snooping, but i wouldn't
- trust it if *i* were running a big corporation. it does make me wonder
- how fast the NSA gang can crack DES stuff, though. seems like i
- remember reading somewhere that one of the criticisms of DES is
- that nobody's quite sure where the S-boxes came from...furthermore,
- they're non-random, leaving a possible trapdoor somewhere. if *that*
- was true, no wonder NSA wants us all using DES!
-
- >Generally speaking, I find that this does not matter to me. But make no
- >mistake, I do feel that legal restraints against the use of strong
- >cryptosystems by private citizens should be opposed, for much the same
- >reasons that I support the right to keep and bear firearms and other weapons.
- >
- yep.
-
- drew
- --
- betz@gozer.idbsu.edu
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