[107573] in Cypherpunks
Re: Absurd news report from IBM?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alexander Kjeldaas)
Mon Jan 18 08:15:06 1999
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 13:50:28 +0100
From: Alexander Kjeldaas <astor@guardian.no>
To: Michael Elkins <Michael_Elkins@NAI.com>, cypherpunks@toad.com
In-Reply-To: <19990118010205.A4716@nai.com>; from Michael Elkins on Mon, Jan 18, 1999 at 01:02:05AM -0800
Reply-To: Alexander Kjeldaas <astor@guardian.no>
On Mon, Jan 18, 1999 at 01:02:05AM -0800, Michael Elkins wrote:
> As I was driving home tonight I was listening to the news. One of
> the stories was out of IBM with some person claiming that they had
> developed a new "unbreakable" encryption algorithm. Not only that,
> but out of the kindness of their heart (my editorial) they are going
> to give it away to the internet with no restrictions (like patents).
> He then went on to say that this 40-digit key
that would be around 128 bits or more wouldn't it?
> would take hundreds of years to break and only that after random
> guessing since the algorithm is so strong that no other attack is
> possible.
>
> I looked around and I don't see that IBM has made any sort of announcement
> about a new algorithm. Did anyone else run across this story elsewhere?
>
MARS? IBM are applying for a patent, but if received they would allow
free use of the algorithm.
astor
--
Alexander Kjeldaas, Guardian Networks AS, Trondheim, Norway
http://www.guardian.no/
