An IDEA whose time has come (Notes from the RSA Conference)

[Bill Stewart]

At 09:52 AM 1/22/96 -0800, Jonathan Zamick <JonathanZ at consensus.com> wrote:
> Right now I'm trying to convince Ascom to develop a
> crippled version of IDEA to simply give away if anyone wants it for export.
> (Like most of the folk here, I don't see a 40 bit key as very valuable, but
> it is useful for companies which don't have contacts in Europe.)

A crippled version is easy - generate a 128-bit random key, make 88 bits
available as salt, leaving 40 hidden bits.  The problem is how to make the
salt-bits available without interfering with applications and protocols.
If you wanted a 64-bit crippled version, most applications need 64 bits
of IV anyway, so you could use 64 bits of salt for that, leaving 64 more.
To do a 40-bit version, you _could_ use 64 bits of salt and wire down the
other 24 bits into a well-known pattern instead of choosing them randomly.
That's three characters of ASCII, and I'd suggest "NSA" as the obvious
pattern :-)

So generate your 128-bit random number, replace the first 24 bits with "NSA",
copy the 64 bits into the IV, and use it for your key.
#--
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts at ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281
#
# "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" used to mean us watching
# the government, not the other way around....