It seems the TLAs (in a weak moment) let slip that DES was getting old and creaky and vulnerable. The story is that that is what sent the TLAs off on their search for a new encryption standard. (Unfortunately, they got their mission reversed and decided the need was to *read* plaintext not encrypt it.) My question: if triple-DES is so damn tough to break, what is wrong with DES? Triple-DES is a trivial variation on DES. Is it likely that DES's frailities are not the ones we compute with all those big numbers? Given the public portions of DES's history, what DES weaknesses make sense? -kb, the Kent who is 300+ emails behind due to a biz trip and a damp notebook. -- Kent Borg +1 (617) 776-6899 kentborg@world.std.com kentborg@aol.com Proud to claim 39:30 hours of TV viewing so far in 1994!