On Thu, 30 Nov 2000, No User wrote:
IBM's new as-yet-unnamed security algorithm simultaneously encrypts and authenticates messages. It works with symmetric cryptography in which the same secret key, or mathematical code, is used to encrypt and decrypt, as opposed to public key cryptography, in which two different keys are used. The new algorithm has been submitted to the U.S. Patent Office and proposed to the National Institute of Standards.
This sounds vaguely like Charanjit Jutla's preprint http://eprint.iacr.org/2000/039/ It's a chaining mode for block ciphers.
"IBM's got a track record of coming out with these major crypto announcements around early stage results" that haven't been evaluated and tested, said Dierks of Certicom. "They're seen as self promoting." An IBM algorithm dubbed the "Atjai-Dwork cryptosystem" was announced in 1997 and broken the following year, he said.
Yes, this is annoying. I think it reflects more on IBM marketing than IBM Research. -David