🚀 go-pugleaf

 -=> Quoting Lyle_seamanAllransarc.com to All <=-

 (Owen Lewis) writes:
 > Does the US government (use DES)?  I believe not.

 Ly> I would bet that this is because they want classified material to be 
 Ly> safe for a hundred years or so.  They recognize that DES (while it may
 Ly> be relatively safe for the near future) will be highly vulnerable to
 Ly> brute-force attack within 50 years, and they have a lot of secrets
 Ly> they'd rather no one found out about.   It doesn't have to be because
 Ly> there are hidden flaws in DES.

 But not all govt material requires (or is given) protection that should 
 last for 50 years. While some information may be of crucial importance 
 for several days (say) it will become worthless shortly thereafter. Isn't the
 point that breaking a cypher - be it DES or any other - would endanger vital 
 short term information too. Information should be classified by its 
 sensitivity alone (though automatic declassification should be possible once 
 it has passed its 'sell by' date.  
 
 Therefore, no highly classified material ought to be entrusted to any system 
 where there is doubt as to its medium term security. It would seem that the 
 US and other major governments take that view. In my opinion, commercial 
 users bearing appreciable levels of threat to their information security 
 (e.g. hi-tech R&D, financial institutions, pharmecutical  and 
 bio-engineering companies) would be well advised to take a similar view.

___ Blue Wave/QWKv2.11