Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!brl-adm!brl-smoke!smoke!hyatt@dewey.udel.edu From: hyatt@dewey.udel.edu (Glenn Hyatt) Newsgroups: net.legal Subject: DES Message-ID: <1832@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: Fri, 14-Mar-86 20:27:35 EST Article-I.D.: brl-smok.1832 Posted: Fri Mar 14 20:27:35 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 16-Mar-86 09:28:02 EST Sender: news@brl-smoke.ARPA Lines: 7 I hadn't heard about DES' alleged trap door. It's interesting. I remain puzzled, though. If DES is such a breeze for the NSA to crack, why do they fight it so vigorously? My guess is that although they may have fairly easy ways to break it (especially the stream encryption), it still takes a great deal more in processing time to decrypt and read ciphertext than it takes just to read cleartext.