From: wlkngowl@unix.asb.com
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 95 04:09:06 PST
To: Bill Stewart <cypherpunks@toad.com>
Subject: Re: GOST for sale
Message-ID: <199511291310.HAA00198@UNiX.asb.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 11:53:26 -0800, you wrote:

>At 03:43 AM 11/24/95 +0100, Mats Bergstrom <asgaard@sos.sll.se> wrote:
>>According to a short article in a Swedish newspaper (DN)
>>with the title 'Spy Code of KGB can make computers safe', 
>>JETICO INC., located in Finland (Tammerfors), introduced
>>a new crypto system on the world market last week. It's 
>>based on GOST, the Russian federal standard algorithm.

[..]
>From what I've read of GOST, it's really a family of cyphers with
>different sets of S-boxes - routine military gets one set, top secret
>gets another, civilian govt another, etc.  Aside from possible
>differences in security level for the S-boxes, one motivation is
>that you can't take civilian govt decryptors and use them to read
>or forge top secret military crypto, etc.  If this is correct,
>then some sets of S-boxes probably do have trapdoors (at least
>susceptibility to differential cryptanalysis_; how good are the
>ones that Jetico is selling, what credentials do they have to
>convince us their cryptanalysis is good enough, and why are they
>doing parts of it in hardware?

Based on the few articles I've read, S-Boxes are generated randomly,
or (doubtful in this case) generated from the passphrase, making an
even larger keyspace.

--Rob