Re: Prof Shamir arrested

At 01:00 PM 10/22/96 +0300, Jüri Kaljundi wrote:
> Mon, 21 Oct 1996, Rabid Wombat wrote:
>
>> Or is this the Avi Shamir who broke FEAL-8?
>
>Can you tell more of this? There is an Windows disk encryption utility
>called Teamware Crypto that uses FEAL-8. This program is quite popular in
>Europe, distributed and made by ICL Data.

The attacks on FEAL are pretty lengthy.  _Applied Cryptography_ 2nd edition
by Bruce Schneier has a list of attacks on page 311.  The Shamir attack is
not the one to worry about.  Matsui and Yamagishi have an attack that
breaks it in 2^15 known plaintexts.

If you do not have a copy, I can dig up the references on it.  (It is too
late/early for me to do it clearly at this point...)

Hope that helps.

---
|  "Remember: You can't have BSDM without BSD." - alan@ctrl-alt-del.com  |
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|`finger -l alano@teleport.com` for PGP 2.6.2 key  | behind the keyboard.|
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Tue, 22 Oct 1996, Alan Olsen wrote:

> >Can you tell more of this? There is an Windows disk encryption utility
> >called Teamware Crypto that uses FEAL-8. This program is quite popular in
> >Europe, distributed and made by ICL Data.
> 
> The attacks on FEAL are pretty lengthy.  _Applied Cryptography_ 2nd edition
> by Bruce Schneier has a list of attacks on page 311.  The Shamir attack is
> not the one to worry about.  Matsui and Yamagishi have an attack that
> breaks it in 2^15 known plaintexts.

I have the book but unfortunately I gave it to a friend for some time to
read it :) 

Anyway I personally use F-Secure Desktop which uses Blowfish and I am
happy with that. Just that I thought the product Teamware Crypto is not as
secure as the marketing materials say.

Jüri Kaljundi                         AS Stallion
jk@stallion.ee                        WWW ja andmeturva teenused
                                      http://www.stallion.ee/