From myb@ams.org Wed Oct 25 14:49:16 2000
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2000 13:41:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: myb@ams.org
To: tony@math.sunysb.edu
Subject: U.S. Government Embraces New Encryption Technique Developed in Belgium


This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education 
(http://chronicle.com) was forwarded to you from: myb@ams.org

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The following message was enclosed:
  Tony,
  
  This one's about the AES.
  
  
  Mike

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  From the issue dated October 20, 2000



  U.S. Government Embraces New Encryption Technique Developed in
  Belgium

  By FLORENCE OLSEN
  
   The Commerce Department has selected an encryption algorithm
  developed by two Belgian cryptographers -- one of whom is in
  academe -- to become the new federal standard for protecting
  sensitive information. 
  
  The inventors of the algorithm are Vincent Rijmen, a
  postdoctoral researcher in electrical engineering at the
  Catholic University of Louvain, a research institution in
  Belgium; and Joan Daemen, a cryptographer at Proton World
  International, a systems-integration company in Brussels that
  develops smart cards. 
  
  The government will not require universities and other
  research institutions that have federal contracts to use the
  new data-scrambling formula, which is called Rijndael
  (pronounced RHINE-doll). However, federal officials anticipate
  that it will be widely used in electronic commerce --
  domestically and internationally -- to protect sensitive
  financial and personal information.  
  
  The new algorithm could replace the current one, known as the
  Data Encryption Standard, as soon as summer 2001. In the
  intervening time, the government will post an announcement in
  the Federal Register proposing that the algorithm be adopted
  as a federal information-processing standard. Then officials
  will allow 90 days for public comment.
  
  Unlike the federal government's top-secret cryptographic
  codes, the new encryption algorithm will be unclassified, free
  of any royalties, and publicly available for use and export
  anywhere in the world, said Raymond G. Kammer, director of the
  U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology, which
  managed the selection process.  
  
  The search for an advanced encryption algorithm to replace the
  one that has been in use since 1977 took four years and
  attracted  21 competitors from public and private companies
  and academic research institutions in 12 countries.  
  
  Their submissions, many bearing whimsical names such as the
  Hasty Pudding Cipher, Frog, and TwoFish, were tested and
  challenged throughout what was described by Commerce
  Department officials as a rigorous public-review process. 
  
  To be considered for selection, an encryption algorithm had to
  be designed so that it can be made stronger as more powerful
  computer processors are  developed.  
  
  Officials said the Rijndael algorithm, comprising 282 lines of
  code, is compact enough for use on smart cards, which are 
  widely used to secure online financial transactions,
  especially in Europe. About the size of a credit card, a smart
  card contains a processor and only a small amount of memory. 
  
  Among the competition's finalists were a group led by Ross J.
  Anderson, of the University of Cambridge; a team led by Bruce
  Schneier, of Counterpane Systems, in Minneapolis; a team
  represented by Nevenko Zunic of the International Business
  Machines Corporation's Thomas J. Watson Research Center; and
  Burt Kaliski, representing RSA Laboratories, in Bedford, Mass.
    
  
  None of the entrants	received remuneration, Mr. Kammer said,
  "other than the personal satisfaction of having created
  something and having it acknowledged." 
  
  The Rijndael algorithm, Mr. Kammer said, should have a useful
  life of approximately 30 years -- "that is, if quantum
  computing doesn't manifest itself in five or six years."
  Quantum computing, which would take place at the level of
  atomic particles, would be fundamentally different and
  potentially more powerful than digital computing.
  
  
  

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Copyright 2000 by The Chronicle of Higher Education