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1995-01-19 - Re: Multiple symetric cyphers

Header Data

From: Mike Johnson second login <exabyte!gedora!mikej2@uunet.uu.net>
To: gedora!uunet!ingr.com!perobich@uunet.uu.net
Message Hash: 75cc1eec4ef2a69a746c5fb78a64d12b03936ec1a70dfce5d000fde0478d506e
Message ID: <Pine.3.89.9501181433.A14495-0100000@gedora>
Reply To: <199501121547.AA02187@poboy.b17c.ingr.com>
UTC Datetime: 1995-01-19 09:12:38 UTC
Raw Date: Thu, 19 Jan 95 01:12:38 PST

Raw message

From: Mike Johnson second login <exabyte!gedora!mikej2@uunet.uu.net>
Date: Thu, 19 Jan 95 01:12:38 PST
To: gedora!uunet!ingr.com!perobich@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: Multiple symetric cyphers
In-Reply-To: <199501121547.AA02187@poboy.b17c.ingr.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.3.89.9501181433.A14495-0100000@gedora>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain




On Thu, 12 Jan 1995, Paul Robichaux wrote:

> > But selecting a single cipher is just as much a fixed policy as a
> > randomly selected one is.  Far better to let the user pick a policy,
> > both about sent and accepted ciphers.
> 
> If you do give the user control, what is an acceptable mechanical
> implementation? Let's say I have a file encryptor which allows the
> user to choose between DES, 3DES, IDEA, Diamond, and RC5. Must I
> require the user to tell that program what cypher was used to encrypt
> the file she wishes to decrypt?
> 
> Is storing the cypher type as part of the encrypted file a weakness?

Perhaps it is.  The algorithm set could be part of the key, though...

Thread