For Release 11.00 EDT Monday 2nd October 2000
Rijndael is GREEN
NIST chooses Rijndael as the Advanced Encryption Standard
Announced today in Washington, DC, the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST) has chosen Rijndael as the
Advanced Encryption Algorithm for the 21st century.
Rijndael -- pronounced Rhine-Dahl -- is the creation of two
Belgian cryptographers, Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen.
The Cryptix Development Team congratulates Vincent and Joan on
their extraordinary achievement and announces the immediate
release of the Cryptix JCE and Cryptix 3.2, both enabled with
AES as Rijndael.
International Cryptoplumbing
An international team of open source crypto volunteers from
The Cryptix Development Team supported the cryptographers
participating in the NIST contest, efforts that were recognised
with the award of a Certificate Of Appreciation from the United
States Department Of Commerce.
Raif S. Naffah, from Australia, led the Cryptix AES Support
Project which provided the Java code and tools for most
finalists, including Rijndael, for submission to NIST.
Paulo Barreto, Brazilian mathematician and programmer, provided
coding support for optimising Rijndael implementations; he has
been coding and reviewing algorithms for the Belgian team for
many years, including the predecessor to Rijndael, the Square
cipher.
Free Crypto
Under the terms of the NIST contest, Rijndael is free and
unencumbered for all purposes and all peoples. Cryptix
developers have agreed to match this condition, and hereby
place their Rijndael code in the public domain.
Normally, all Cryptix code is free for all purposes, but requires
acknowledgement of The Cryptix Foundation as owners under an
extremely liberal "BSD licence." Even this condition is now
dropped for the Rijndael code, so that all commercial providers
of Java cryptography, including Sun, Baltimore, RSA Labs, and
IAIK, may quickly offer their customers the best code.
No Arms Race Need Apply
Cryptography has long been treated as a munition by the US
government. Today's decision marks the end of an era stretching
back to the days of Enigma and Magic intercepts. The new
algorithm and the accompanying code base is absolutely unimpaired
by political or commercial limitations.
As a science, cryptography is the special domain of
mathematicians; formulas flow across borders as fast as emails.
As an idea, the Rijndael cipher can be written out in 10 or so
pages of paper, making it impermeable to regulations.
Fuel For The Revolution
As a tool, code for the new AES algorithm is less than 10,000
bytes, and thus cryptography slips into the average application
with less implication on costs than the price of a new PC. As a
building block, AES will help to fuel the new industrial
revolution in electronic commerce. Ciphers such as Rijndael will
keep valuable messages secure in the wild west of the Internet
far better than the old methods of obscurity and regulation.
Released by The Cryptix Foundation Limited, a Nevis corporation
dedicated to the spread of strong crypto.
Links:
NIST announces the winner of AES as Rijndael:
http://www.nist.gov/aes/
The Rijndael page of the Cryptography team, Joan Daemen and
Vincent Rijmen:
http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~rijmen/rijndael/
Cryptix places Rijndael code in public domain:
http://www.cryptix.org/aes/
Cryptix products JCE and Cryptix 3 now released with Rijndael
as AES:
http://www.cryptix.org/news/02102000.html
http://www.cryptix.org/products/jce/index.html
http://www.cryptix.org/products/cryptix31/index.html
http://www.cryptix.org/products/aes/index.html
About The Rijndael Team
Dr Joan Daemen is currently employed by Proton World
International. Dr Vincent Rijmen is a cryptography researcher
with Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.
About Cryptix
Java cryptography was first provided under the label of Cryptix
in 1996. The Cryptix Development Team now includes crypto-
plumbers -- programmers who work with the algorithms and ciphers
of cryptographers to produce code and applications -- from 8
countries and publishes the most popular Java cryptography suite.
Cryptix products are generally published under the BSD licence,
making them free for all purposes when used with due
acknowledgement as to source. The Cryptix implementations of
Rijndael, written as part of our AES support project, are now
placed in the public domain so that all commercial suppliers
can proceed to support the AES without having to give any
acknowledgement.
About National Institute of Standards and Technology
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an
agency of the U.S. Department Of Commerce, is charged by the US
Congress with developing standards for industry. Many of its
standards achieve world-wide acceptance, and the predecessor DES
has been accepted as the de facto standard for encryption for
three decades, albeit with much controversy.
About the Advanced Encryption Standard
In order to allay concerns of interference, NIST sponsored the
open competition for the new algorithm, encouraging entries from
around the world. Some 21 submissions were narrowed down to five
finalists.
NIST encouraged competing cryptographers and the NSA (the world's
largest employer of cryptographers and mathematicians) to
critique the algorithms, building up a body of review that led
to today's choice of the new standard.
End.
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R. A. Hettinga