The DES Analytic Crack Project

[Mok-Kong Shen]

Jim Gillogly wrote:
> 
> In the early 1980's I started trying this approach.  I did the
> back-of-the-envelope estimate and realized it was too big, but
> I thought it worth trying, since if there were a back door in
> DES it might manifest itself by a massive collapse in the complexity
> of these expressions.  I didn't get far enough into it to decide one
> way or the other, since I didn't have a good tool for reducing the
> expressions to minimal form.

As far as I know Boolean minimization has been one of the central
themes of people doing circuit design from the beginning. I should
be surprised if there are spectacular breakthroughs recently.

M. K. Shen