[3348] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: r.e. quality of IDEA...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (David Honig)
Wed Sep 23 00:22:44 1998
Date: Tue, 22 Sep 1998 20:49:55 -0700
To: Rodney Thayer <rodney@tillerman.nu>, cryptography@c2.net
From: David Honig <honig@sprynet.com>
In-Reply-To: <199809211253.IAA05089@2gn.com>
At 09:46 AM 9/21/98 -0400, Rodney Thayer wrote:
>OK, this was a hoax. Fine. So how well examined is IDEA? I realize
>this is a subjective question. How well examined is it compared to,
>say, Blowfish, CAST-128, or RC-5? I'm asking because I'm wondering
>how well suited IDEA would be to use in IPSec.
IDEA uses algebraic operations to generate its F() function,
in the Feistel sense.
Blowfish uses a large 'random' table to start and iterates
itself 521 times, using the user-key, to replace all those
32-bit values.
You tell me which is going to be more analytically exploitable.
----------
Blowfish has a very long key initialization time.
IDEA does not. The pros and cons of hitchhiking.
The NSA asked the NIST to request that AES ciphers
be able to encrypt 2 blocks with 2 keys in the same
time as 2 blocks with 1 key. Ie, ciphers you can search
rapidly are mucho desirable from the perspective
of the eye in the sky.
