Can anyone tell me anything about a product called "Entrust", by Nortel (Northern Telecom). The notes talk about the software using DES ("which employs a 56-bit key") so I guess it's single DES, not triple DES. It also mentions a proprietary algorithm called CAST. Is this worthy of further investigation, or is it suspect ? What is CAST, and would it be classed as snake oil ? Please cc to me in mail - I have a little trouble dealing with the volume here. Sincerely, -Jon -- Jonathon Fletcher, "opinions are my own, not my employer's" jonathon@japan.sbi.com
Jonathon Fletcher writes:
Can anyone tell me anything about a product called "Entrust", by Nortel (Northern Telecom). The notes talk about the software using DES ("which employs a 56-bit key") so I guess it's single DES, not triple DES. It also mentions a proprietary algorithm called CAST.
Is this worthy of further investigation, or is it suspect ? What is CAST, and would it be classed as snake oil ?
I asked one of the NorTel sales reps. about this at the RSA conference. As I recall, CAST is an espionage-enabled version of DES -- i.e. 16 of the key bits are sent in the clear, or have a fixed value, or something along those lines. The guy I spoke to didn't know the technical details. Of course, maybe we should consider 56-bit DES espionage-enabled at this point too !
Please cc to me in mail
(done) -Lewis
Jonathon Fletcher writes:
Can anyone tell me anything about a product called "Entrust", by Nortel (Northern Telecom). The notes talk about the software using DES ("which employs a 56-bit key") so I guess it's single DES, not triple DES. It also mentions a proprietary algorithm called CAST.
Is this worthy of further investigation, or is it suspect ? What is CAST, and would it be classed as snake oil ?
"Entrust" was built by Smart People. Of course, any given component of it is only as strong as the underlying algorithms; you yourself are probably aware of the problems associated with DES vs 3DES and such. I would suggest examining the documents. I don't know anything about CAST. Perry
participants (4)
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Jonathon Fletcher -
lmccarth＠cs.umass.edu -
Perry E. Metzger -
SINCLAIR DOUGLAS N