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From: greg@ogre.cica.indiana.edu (Gregory TRAVIS)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Re: DES and NSA again and again and again and again....
Message-ID: <9568@cica.cica.indiana.edu>
Date: 10 Jan 91 02:17:21 GMT
References: <6809@crash.cts.com> <5729@rsiatl.Dixie.Com>
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In <5729@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) writes:

>shiva@pro-smof.cts.com (System Smof) writes:

>>>Although the people in sci.crypt probably have a better handle on it
>>>than he did, Bamford claims that the NSA convinced IBM to shorten the
>>>key from 128 bits to 56.  Apparently in exchanged the NSA helped IBM
>>>strengthen the S-box structures before DES was released as a standard.
>>>Also, this was brought up in Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in
>>>1977.

>>That the crux of what I had heard (about the unreliability of the DES).

>God, we beat this one to death.  One could just as easily hypothesize
>that the NSA proved to IBM that a 56 bit key is as functionally secure
>as a 128 bit key but at a tremendous computational saving.  In the 
>absence of evidence pointing either way, one hypothesis is as good
>as the conspiracy theory.

  I apologize if this point has been hashed over, as I've not seen the
previous discussions about DES and the NSA.

  But, I thought the whole point WAS indeed that the 56-bit key offered
"tremendous computational savings" over the 128-bit key.  The NSA may have
concluded that using brute-force methodes to break the DES would be
impossible for the 128-bit codes (given existing and projected advances
in computational hardware).  Bamford's _Puzzle Palace_ suggests that the
NSA felt that it could break DES by brute force in a reasonable amount
of time on its own hardware if a 56-bit key were the standard.  And the
supposition is, of course, that the NSA will always have access to bigger
and better hardware than the average Joe.

  Bamford gives several other examples where the NSA has acted very
aggressively when it comes to maintaining a monopoly of coding systems,
so this type of behavior on their part is not unknown or unusual.

  What IS left unexplained is why the NSA would believe that anyone
seriously interested in escaping detection would nonetheless implement
DES as defined by the standard!
--
Gregory R. Travis                Indiana University, Bloomington IN 47405
greg@cica.cica.indiana.edu       Center for Innovative Computer Applications
Disclaimer:  Everything I say is true and I never lie.