🚀 go-pugleaf

    >2.  Has triple DES actually been proven to be stronger than a single
    >    DES encryption?  I guess this boils down to whether DES has been
    >    proven to be a group.

    No.  The inventors assert that DES is composable under most circumstances.
    (See Matyas and Meyers).  However, the independent evaluators are
    silent.  IBM notes in passing that an exhaustive attack against a
    112 bit would require all of the energy from all of the coal and oil
    likely to recovered in the continental US for the next five hundred
    years. 

Could you explain this some more?  I don't understand what you
mean by "composable under most circumstances".  (We know now that DES
is *not* a group, per discussion here a few months ago).