The following information from the Rijndael Page http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~rijmen/rijndael/index.html may come in handy later today when NIST announces the new Advanced Encryption Standard (AES): 'Rijndael FAQ 1.How is that pronounced ? If you're Dutch, Flemish, Indonesian, Surinamer or South-African, it's pronounced like you think it should be. Otherwise, you could pronounce it like "Reign Dahl", "Rain Doll", "Rhine Dahl". We're not picky. As long as you make it sound different from "Region Deal". 2.Why did you choose this name ? Because we were both fed up with people mutilating the pronunciation of the names "Daemen" and "Rijmen". (There are two messages in this answer.) 3.Can't you give it another name ? (Propose it as a tweak!) Dutch is a wonderful language. Currently we are debating about the names "Herfstvrucht", "Angstschreeuw" and "Koeieuier". Other suggestions are welcome of course. Derek Brown, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, proposes "bob".' At 9:50 PM +0200 9/30/2000, Nomen Nescio wrote:

Though NIST is being very secretive regarding the AES announcement, they let the following rumors leak:

1. There is a single winner. 2. It is not an American design.

If so, this rules out MARS, RC6, and Twofish. But now comes the third rumor:

3. The winner is not covered by any patent or patent claim identified or disclosed to NIST by interested parties.

Assuming this is true, there is only one algorithm that is not explicitly mentioned in Hitachi's claim: Rijndael.