A few articles of interest...

For those who have not seen it...

The January 1995 issue of Dr. Dobbs has tw articles of interest.

-  Bruce Schneier has an article on GOST.  (A Soviet varient on DES.)

-  An article on RC5 by Ron Rivest!  (Which includes source code!)

Dr. Dobbs has had a number of good crypto related articles as of late.
(Having  a regular column by Bruce Scheier could be part of it...)

Also, for those who are interested in Windows 95 (users 0)...  Andrew
Schulman has an article on Windows 95 from the inside.  (This is part of his
new book and the reason he got kicked off of the beta team.)  Interesting
reading.
|       "Encryption ROT13s your mind."            | alano@teleport.com   |
|"Would you rather be tortured by the government  | Disclaimer:          |
|forces or the people's liberation army?" -mklprc | Ignore the man       |
|   -- PGP 2.6.2 key available on request --      |  behind the keyboard.|

Alan Olsen writes:
 > -  An article on RC5 by Ron Rivest!  (Which includes source code!)

I'm still very curious as to how the applied-for patent on RC5
protects the algorithm.  Perhaps it just protects the RC5 algorithm
family specifically, the idea being that if it becomes very popular
then anyone implementing it for compatibility reasons will be forced
to purchase a license to do so.  

| GOOD TIME FOR MOVIE - GOING ||| Mike McNally <m5@tivoli.com>       |
| TAKE TWA TO CAIRO.          ||| Tivoli Systems, Austin, TX:        |
|     (actual fortune cookie) ||| "Like A Little Bit of Semi-Heaven" |

Whoops.  I have a nasty feeling that a brushed key might just have sent an
unedited version to the list.  If so, my apologies.

On Dec 11, 10:27am, Alan Olsen wrote:
> -  Bruce Schneier has an article on GOST.  (A Soviet varient on DES.)

GOST is not a variant on DES.  It is the Soviet equivalent of DES.
The algorithms do have some similarities (eg. the use of S-boxes to provide
diffusion), it is a Feistal network, but is in other ways interestingly
different.  I believe that it has been undergoing quite a bit of Western
cryptanalysis over the past year, although I have not seen any results as
yet.

IMO, one of the most interesting features of GOST is that the S-boxes
are not specified in the algorithm's definition.  Apparently you had to
apply to the government for them, and they would respond with ones they
wanted you to have.  It is presumed that the security of the ones you
were given depended on how much they trusted you, and how much they wanted
what you were protecting to remain a secret. I recall that Matt (?)
posted a set of standard non-classified (probably low-security) Soviet
S-boxes for GOST a couple of months ago.

							Ian.