New vs Old (was Snake Oil)

[NOP]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Jill.Ramonsky at Aculab.com>
To: <cryptography at metzdowd.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 4:58 AM
Subject: New vs Old (was Snake Oil)


>
> I confess to being confused - though admittedly part of the blame for this
> is my own ignorance.
>
> I remember a time when PGP was a command line application. The only
> algorithms it used were IDEA (symmetric), RSA (assymetric) and MD5 (hash).
I
> came to trust these algorithms.
>
> Now these once-'standard' algorithms are no longer encouraged. The new
> versions of PGP seem to prefer CAST instead of IDEA, DH/DSS instead of
RSA,
> and SHA-1 instead of MD5.
>
> So, could someone please tell me:
>
> (1) What is the justification for using these "new" algorithms instead of
> the old ones? (A cynic might suggest that, since the "powers that be"
> couldn't break the old algorithms, they encouraged the use of new ones
that
> they could. This probably isn't true, but I'm sure you can understand why
> someone might think that).
>
> (2) What actually _IS_ DH/DSS? (I don't mean what do the initials it stand
> for, I mean what actually is the algorithm?). I ask because I can
understand
> RSA, and implement it myself relatively straightforwardly, but I have not
> been able to find an explanation, simple or otherwise, of what the DH/DSS
> algorithm actually is, or of why it's hard to break.
>
 answering number two, DH = Diffie-Hellman, DSS = Digital Signature
Standard.
 The method for signaturing is utilizing discrete logarithm problems, versus
RSA factoring problems.

DSS is the NIST standard for DSA (Digital Signature Algorithm).
DSS was selected by NIST, in cooperation with the NSA  to be the digital
authentication standard of the U.S. government.

> (3) Ditto CAST and SHA-1.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jill
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Amir Herzberg [mailto:amir at herzberg.name]
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2003 5:25 PM
> To: cryptography at metzdowd.com
> Subject: Re: Maybe It's Snake Oil All the Way Down
>
>
> Erik is right: there must be very strong motivation to consider using a
> cryptographic mechanism/protocol which is not `standard` (de-facto
> standards are Ok).
>
>
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>

Lance James

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