Justin Lister says:
The only really reasonable symmetric key ciphers out there in publically described form these days are DES, 3-DES and IDEA. There are a couple of things that may be okay, but which aren't out in the public literature (RC2 and RC4), a couple of things that are likely okay but which we are REALLY not going to find anything out about for a while (Skipjack :-) and a couple of things that are promising (like Coppersmith's new SEAL stream cipher, which looks quite interesting indeed.)
I wonder on which evidence you base your assumptions ?? (I would assume schneiers book)
More the papers in the public literature, actually.
While Schneier's book is a very good guide, it is not very advisable to make assumptions on the security of algorithms based on his book. One should look at results from those performing cryptanalysis of such ciphers. Such as biham and matsui.
I fully agree. I was reading in this field a long time before Bruce even began writing. Perry