Check out the April 94 issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal. There are four articles on cryptography, and a cryptanalysis contest. The first article is by myself, about the Cambridge Algorithms Workshop last November. The topic of the workshop was high-speed encryption, and ten complete algorithms were presented. The article discusses the workshop, briefly mentions the algorithms, and talks a little about designing secure algorithms. The second article, by Peter Smith, talks more about the LUC cipher. If you remember his article in the Jan 93 DDJ, LUC is an RSA variant that uses Lucas functions instead of exponentiation. Even though Smith claims to have invented this scheme, it has been around since the early 1980s (see p. 318 of my book). In any case, it's a good article. William Stalling's article is about SHA. It explains how the algorithm works very nicely. (If this is any indication of how his new book will look, I am looking forward to it.) And finally, I have an article describing a new secret-key algorithm: Blowfish. I presented Blowfish at the Cambridge Workshop. The article includes a description of the algorithm and source code (that hopefully will compile on any machine--call me if you have problems). DDJ is sponsoring a cracking context for Blowfish. You don't have to break the entire algorithm, just finding a weakness is sufficient. The best attack received by 1 April 1995 wins. Awards are $750 for first place, $250 for second, and $100 for third. Subscribers should expect to receive their copy of the magazine in a week or so, and newsstand copies will be available by mid- March. Bruce ************************************************************************** * Bruce Schneier * Counterpane Systems For a good prime, call 391581 * 2^216193 - 1 * schneier@chinet.chi.il.us **************************************************************************

From owner-cypherpunks Tue Mar 1 13:49:25 1994