IBM Cries Crypto Wolf, Experts Say

[Eric Murray]

On Thu, Nov 30, 2000 at 08:42:07PM -0500, No User wrote:
> 
> Big Blue says it can make encryption twice as fast. But the company hyped a similar advancement years ago; experts say that idea didn't amount to much, and this one won't either. 
> By Elinor Abreu 
> IBM is announcing a new algorithm on Thursday that it says will double the speed at which online communications are encrypted. But several crypto experts say that IBM is fixing something that isn't broken and that Big Blue has a history of tooting its horn needlessly.
> 
> IBM's new as-yet-unnamed security algorithm simultaneously encrypts and authenticates messages. It works with symmetric cryptography in which the same secret key, or mathematical code, is used to encrypt and decrypt, as opposed to public key cryptography, in which two different keys are used. The new algorithm has been submitted to the U.S. Patent Office and proposed to the National Institute of Standards.


I'm guessing what's described above is this:


*************************
Stanford Security Seminar

Charanjit Jutla of
IBM Watson

Thursday, Dec 7 at 4:15pm
(Note unusual day)
Gates 4B area
*************************

Encryption Modes with Almost Free Message Integrity

We define a new mode of operation for block encryption which
in addition to assuring confidentiality also assures
message integrity. In contrast, previously for message
integrity a separate pass was required to compute a
cryptographic message authentication code (MAC).
The new mode of operation, called Integrity Aware CBC (IACBC),
requires a total of m+log m block encryptions on a plain-text
of length m blocks. The well known CBC (cipher block chaining)
mode requires m block encryptions. The second pass of computing
the CBC-MAC  essentially requires   additional m block encryptions.
A new highly parallelizable mode (IAPM) is also shown to  
be secure for both encryption and message integrity.
We also show a lower bound  of Omega(log m) additional block
encryptions  for any reasonably modeled  (linear)
scheme which assures message integrity along with
confidentiality.

See http://crypto.stanford.edu/seclab/sem.html



-- 
  Eric Murray           Consulting Security Architect         SecureDesign LLC
  http://www.securedesignllc.com                            PGP keyid:E03F65E5