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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Matt Crypto (talk | contribs) at 18:02, 27 July 2004 (breaking news: NIST wants to phase out DES ;-)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
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This page is to note news items related to cryptography that have the potential to be added to various articles in order to keep things up-to-date.


Time: 05:23 UTC   |   Date: November 6

NIST wants to phase out DES

According to NIST, DES is being "phased out". Although DES has been de facto dead for a decade (and arguably longer), apparently the standard won't be officially withdrawn until after September 2004, at least.

Added to: DES

— Matt 18:02, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

IEEE Approves 802.11i

A new standard for wireless security; I find this whole topic pretty confusing, especially trying to differentiate between WEP, WEP2, WPA, WPA2, 802.11i, TKIP, CCMP and the usual alphabet soup you get with standardisation efforts. Our whole coverage of wireless encryption could do with a revamp, to be honest, especially since the Fluhrer-Mantin-Shamir attack on WEP is quite a significant piece of "real-world" cryptanalysis.

Potential to add information to: 802.11, Wi-fi, Wi-Fi Protected Access, WEP, Cryptanalysis
Added to:

— Matt 13:51, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Analysis of alleged US cryptanalysis

Impressively sane BBC News article discussing the recent claims about the US breaking Iranian ciphers, which includes discussion from Ross Anderson, Fred Piper and Simon Singh, suggesting it was unlikely to be pure cryptanalysis. Great quote from Anderson: "As the former chief scientist of the NSA once remarked at one of our security workshops, almost all breaks of cipher systems are due to implementation errors, operational failures, burglary, blackmail and bribery. As for cryptanalysis, it happens, but very much less often than most people think."

Potential to add information to: Ahmed Chalabi, NSA
Added to: Cryptanalysis

— Matt 01:20, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I would note that Matt's characterization as 'impressively sane' is accurate only when compared to the usual run of wildly inaccurate (if not perhaps quite insane) articles in the popular (and even the technical -- non-cryptographic) press. In this case, there are many errors of mistatement, misimplication, and (I must presume) contracted quotation. It's just better than most, quite a bit better. 'Tis a sad state of affairs and one of the main reasons I've been contributing to the crypto corner here. Perhaps we should refer this reporter to our work on crypto? ww 16:48, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I guess I was impressed with the way they distinguished between breaking Iranian ciphers (possibly, but unlikely) and between breaking the Iranian cryptosystems (more likely) — noone else seemed to bother mentioning the difference. — Matt 13:51, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)