Data Encryption Standard
Data Encryption Standard
In 1972, the NBS Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology (ICST) initiated a project in computer security, a subject then in its infancy. One of the first goals of the project was to develop a cryptographic algorithm standard that could be used to protect sensitive and valuable data during transmission and in storage. Prior to this NBS initiative, encryption had been largely the concern of military and intelligence organizations. The encryption algorithms, i.e., the formulas or rules used to encipher information, that were being used by national military organizations were closely held secrets. There was little commercial or academic expertise in encryption. One of the criteria for an acceptable encryption algorithm standard was that the security provided by the algorithm must depend only on the secrecy of the key, since all the technical specifications of the algorithm itself would be made public. NBS was the first to embark on developing a standard encryption algorithm that could satisfy a broad range of commercial and unclassified government requirements in information security. Ruth M. Davis, then Director of ICST, asked the National Security Agency (NSA) to help evaluate the security of any cryptographic algorithm that would be proposed as a Federal standard. She then initiated the standard’s development project by publishing an invitation in the Federal Register (May 15, 1973) to submit candidate encryption algorithms to protect sensitive, unclassified data. NBS received many responses demonstrating interest in the project, but did not receive any algorithms that met the established criteria. NBS issued a second solicitation in the Federal Register ( August 17, 1974) and received an algorithm from the IBM Corp., which had developed a family of cryptographic algorithms, primarily for financial applications. After significant review within the government, NBS published the technical specifications of the proposed algorithm in the
In 1972, the NBS Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology (ICST) initiated a project in computer security, a subject then in its infancy. One of the first goals of the project was to develop a cryptographic algorithm standard that could be used to protect sensitive and valuable data during transmission and in storage. Prior to this NBS initiative, encryption had been largely the concern of military and intelligence organizations. The encryption algorithms, i.e., the formulas or rules used to encipher information, that were being used by national military organizations were closely held secrets. There was little commercial or academic expertise in encryption. One of the criteria for an acceptable encryption algorithm standard was that the security provided by the algorithm must depend only on the secrecy of the key, since all the technical specifications of the algorithm itself would be made public. NBS was the first to embark on developing a standard encryption algorithm that could satisfy a broad range of commercial and unclassified government requirements in information security. Ruth M. Davis, then Director of ICST, asked the National Security Agency (NSA) to help evaluate the security of any cryptographic algorithm that would be proposed as a Federal standard. She then initiated the standard’s development project by publishing an invitation in the Federal Register (May 15, 1973) to submit candidate encryption algorithms to protect sensitive, unclassified data. NBS received many responses demonstrating interest in the project, but did not receive any algorithms that met the established criteria. NBS issued a second solicitation in the Federal Register ( August 17, 1974) and received an algorithm from the IBM Corp., which had developed a family of cryptographic algorithms, primarily for financial applications. After significant review within the government, NBS published the technical specifications of the proposed algorithm in the
Bibliography: [1] Data Encryption Standard, Federal Information Processing Standards Publication (FIPS PUB) 46, National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC (1977). [2] Data Encryption Algorithm (DEA), ANSI X3.92-1981, American National Standards Institute, New York. [3] Horst Feistel, Cryptography and Computer Privacy, Sci. Am. 228 (5), 15-23 (1973). [4] Horst Feistel, Block Cypher Cryptographic System, US Patent 3,798,359, March 19, 1974. [5] Whitfield Diffie and Martin E. Hellman, Exhaustive Cryptanalysis of the NBS Data Encryption Standard, Computer 10 (6), 74-84 (1977). [6] Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cracking DES: Secrets of Encryption Research, Wiretap Politics and Chip Design, O’Reilly & Associates, Inc., Sebastopol, CA (1998). [7] Data Encryption Standard (DES), Federal Information Processing Standards Publication (FIPS PUB) 46-3, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (1999). [8] Arjen K. Lenstra and Eric R. Verheul, Selecting Cryptographic Key Sizes (http://www.cryptosavvy.com/) October 1999. [9] Bruce Schneier, Applied Cryptography, Protocols, Algorithms, and Source Code in C, Second edition, John Wiley and Sons, New York (1996) p. 267. 253