At 10:30 AM 08/13/2001 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote:
I'm aware of exactly two datapoints - Skipjack (which wasn't good enough that anyone wanted to use it), and the recent 'dual counter mode' snafu. That's not enough to draw broad conclusions.
Dual Counter was a serious crypto product that was broken and failed. But Skipjack was apparently strong enough, within the limits of 80-bit keys, and while the academic whitewash team didn't have time for more than a cursory examination, that wasn't the real problem with the system. After all, it came with a guaranteed wiretap capability, was a clear political scam, and rapidly acquired public hatred and ridicule, plus the only advantage it had was being stronger than 1-DES, which was in practice strong enough for almost all non-money-transfer apps. The whole system reeked badly, but the Skipjack part was the strongest link.