re new encryption algorithm artmel well sf ca us arthur melnick writes ever since craig rowland posted his piece new encryption to sci crypt there has been some discussion of our company secured communications technologies inc and on encryption algorithm nea the classic comment on new encryption algorithms comes from friedman no new cypher is worth considering unless it comes from someone who has already broken a very hard one historically friedman has been right it s really hard to develop a good cypher ibm s lucifer the precursor to des turns out to have been fatally flawed most of the des like systems other than des seem to be vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis the first two tries at public key encryption remember knapsack cyphers were broken most if not all of the machine cyphers of the electromechanical era were broken eventually attempts in the computer era to home brew encryption have been disappointing the classic a survey of data insecurity packages in cryptologia contains analyses and breaking techniques for a few of the popular security packages of the late s a new proprietary algorithm no way if the us is permitting general export of this thing it has to be weak that s how the current regulations work currently there s a willingness to allow systems with short keys bits appears to be no problem the bits of des are too many or weak algorithms i think word perfect qualifies under that rule to be exported i can t believe these guys shepherded their technique through the pto and the state department s arms control division without finding that out john nagle p s no i m not thrilled with clipper either but that s a different issue
