Re: Wikipedia "Cryptography" reaches Featured Article status

On Wed, 12 Jul 2006 19:53:43 GMT, "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@xxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Roger Schlafly wrote:

ciphers. Bruce Schneier writes:
"Off the record, NSA has characterized DES as one of their biggest
mistakes. If they knew the details would be released so that people could
write software, they would never have agreed to it. DES did more to
galvanize the field of cryptanalysis than anything else. Now there was an
algorithm to study: one that the NSA said was secure."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Encryption_Standard

They worked with the winning entrant (IBM) to
improve the original Lucifer-derived algorithm. How would
any of that be a "mistake"?

I found interesting text from 1990 (written by DEG's Butler W.
Lampson) which provides some flesh to the bones to said Bruce's
statement. Sorry for long quotes

<SNIP>
[In contrast to DES] " Other private-key systems have been implemented
and deployed by the NSA for the protection of classified government
information. In contrast to the DES, the encryption/decryption
algorithms within those crypto-systems have been kept private, to the
extent that the computer chips on which they are implemented are
coated in such a way as to prevent them from being examined.
</SNIP>

If NSA had always before used to force their algorithms into silicon
chips with special "coating", that would clearly tell that NSA did not
want algorithms to be examined. On the other hand such expertise in
chip making, makes it obvious that NSA was able to build or carefully
evaluate the chances of building the DES-Cracker at the 70's or 80's.

<SNIP>
The DES represents that first time that the U.S. government has
developed a cryptographic algorithm in public. Historically, such
algorithms have been developed by the NSA as highly classified
projects. However, despite the openness of its design, many
researchers believed that NSA?s influence on the S-box design and the
length of the key introduced a trap-door which allowed the NSA to read
any message encrypted using the DES. In fact, one researcher described
the design of a special-purpose parallel processing computer that was
capable of breaking a DES system using 56-bit keys and that, according
to the researcher, could be built by the NSA using conventional
technology. Nonetheless, in over ten years of academic and industrial
scrutiny, no flaw in the DES has been made public. Unfortunately, as
with all cryptosystems, there is no way of knowing if the NSA or any
other organization has succeeded in breaking the DES.

The controversy surrounding the DES was reborn when the NSA announced
that it would not recertify the algorithm for use in unclassified
government applications after 1987. (Note, DES has never been used to
protect classified, government information, which is protected using
methods controlled by the NSA.) An exception to this ruling was made
for electronic funds transfer applications, most notably FedWire,
which had invested substantially in the use of DES. NSA cited the
widespread use of the DES as a disadvantage, stating that if it were
used too much it would become the prime target of criminals and
foreign adversaries. In its place, NSA has offered a range of
private-key algorithms based on classified algorithms that make use of
keys which are generated and managed by NSA.
<SNIP>

http://research.microsoft.com/Lampson/43-ComputersAtRisk/WebPage.html

HEY, could it be like this: NSA had build their algorithms on
specially coated silicon chips and they didn't want anyone to snoop at
those build in algorithms, AND they know that when somebody (else)
builds a first hardware based DES-cracker, it will tell to every
potential enemy that the way of breaking the algorithms (perhaps those
in NSA's specially coated chips) is brute forcing the messages with
special-purpose parallel processing hardware. Therefore the DES was a
failure. And the central piece of evidence lies in NSA's ability to
build parallel processing chips at the 70's and 80's. Does that make
any sense?

Juuso Hukkanen
www.tele3d.com
(to reply by e-mail set addresses month and year to correct)


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Wikipedia "Cryptography" reaches Featured Article status
    ... a mistake. ... The introduction of DES is considered to have been a catalyst for the ... NSA has characterized DES as one of their biggest ... Certainly the unkeyed Initial Permutation and Final Permutation make no sense for security or for software, but IIRC, it allows hardware registers to be filled in parallel (or something. ...
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  • Re: Wikipedia "Cryptography" reaches Featured Article status
    ... So DES was a mistake because it was followed by research? ... Or because the NSA was not able to predict the future very well? ... NBS standardization process and the algorithm ended up being ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: Wikipedia "Cryptography" reaches Featured Article status
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  • Re: Wikipedia "Cryptography" reaches Featured Article status
    ... the explosion of academic research into crypto that followed the DES ... publication, as described in both the quote itself and in the NIST ... Or because the NSA was not able to predict the future very well? ... of DES lead to an explosion of published public sector crypto research. ...
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  • Re: Is PGP government-proof anymore?
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