From: Adamsc@io-online.com (Adamsc)
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 1996 18:27:22 +0800
To: "Adamsc" <shamrock@netcom.com>
Subject: Re: Can we kill single DES?
Message-ID: <19961005070356406.AAA202@GIGANTE>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Fri, 4 Oct 1996 06:16:44 -0700 (PDT), Lucky Green wrote:

>> >1. Is this a good idea? What will happen if DES becomes perceived
>> >    as insecure?
>> 
>> That's Declan's department (and other non-clueless journalists - declan is
>> just the most visible).   If it get's widespread and the target is something
>> like Digicash, it'd get picked up by the Crime/Snoozeweek crowd.

>Sorry, not a chance. The symmetric cipher used in Ecash is 3DES. Since 
>DigiCash has the good fortune to be located in The Netherlands, full 
>strength crypto can be (and is) used in all their products.

I guess that was kind of ambigous.  What I meant was any protocal/system
where money is changing hands protected only by DES.   That's what I meant by
"like digicash".   I don't even know if such a beast exists, but was
suggesting that anything involving weakly protected money would be a good
target because it highlights the vulnerability and would get media attention.

#  Chris Adams <adamsc@io-online.com>   | http://www.io-online.com/adamsc/adamsc.htp
#  <cadams@acucobol.com>		 | send mail with subject "send PGPKEY"
"That's our advantage at Microsoft; we set the standards and we can change them."
   --- Karen Hargrove, Microsoft (quoted in the Feb 1993 Unix Review editorial)