Re: Cohen's paper on byte order

From: Bryan Olson (fakeaddress@nowhere.org)
Date: 04/09/03 

From: Bryan Olson <fakeaddress@nowhere.org>
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2003 20:57:42 GMT

Eugene Starokoltsev wrote:
> So the community needs to define some standard way to use different
> cryptografic algorithms having bit-stream external interface with
> byte-stream communication protocols.

What we need are crypto algorithms defined on the objects our
other protocols use for inter-operability. Adding extra
standards as adapters on crypto algorithms would be the doing
that the hard way.

> I suspect some standard exists
> already but we do not know it. It is not AES-specific problem.

It's been a problem with some of the NIST algorithms. It's not
a problem with most crypto standards, because most are defined
on octets.

> And
> FIPS-197 is not the place to add such specification because modes of
> operation are specified in terms of bit streams.

The first AES modes-of-operation document has no problem
specifying in terms of both bit-strings and integers. See NIST
SP 800-38A. Incidentally, it says the high order bits are ones
on the left. 

-- 
--Bryan

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