🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <930@gofish.Stars.Reston.Unisys.COM> dymm@gofish.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (David Dymm) writes:
>Folks,
>
>I would like to use DES to encrypt some data files.
>Essentially, I am using des as a checksum to ensure that
>files are not unintentionally changed.
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It might be more practical to just remove read permissions from the
file.  If you want something more than that, try using a CRC.  It's
*much* faster.  It also has the advantage that the file can still be
read as plaintext.

But suppose you really want to encrypt the files...

>  However, I have users who telnet use my system via
>remote AFS, which means that they must have des on their system
>in order to decrypt my data files.  See the problem?  I can not
>require my users to reconfigure their kernal just so that they
>can use des.  Is their another solution?

You can also implement the DES algorithm in software.  That would
work on any machine without and kernel configuration, but would be
slower.  You could probably find one available for anonymous ftp
through archie.

I would still recommend the CRC approach, unless you are actively trying
to keep other people from understanding the files contents.