Newsgroups: sci.crypt From: oml@eloka.demon.co.uk (Owen Lewis) Path: cactus.org!cs.utexas.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!demon!eloka.demon. + co.uk!oml Subject: Re: Ladder DES References: <1994Feb22.083353.26012@cactus.org>Organization: Eloka Consultancy & Project Management Reply-To: oml@eloka.demon.co.uk X-Newsreader: Demon Internet Simple News v1.27 Lines: 44 Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 10:51:09 +0000 Message-ID: <762000669snz@eloka.demon.co.uk> Sender: usenet@demon.co.uk In article dbarber@crash.cts.com "David C. Barber" writes: >An interesting post, but begs a question on why don't we want to >use IDEA to replace DES? Not entirely jokingly, I propose the following reasons: 1. The massive investment already made in DES technology and equipment makes people reluctant to change. 2. For the US market, the NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. My personal bet is that IDEA will beome a world market leader in the coming years but that it will not lead in the US market, with or without USG tilting the table. Without wishing to introduce matter extraneous to this forum, I do also believe that the development and spread of cryptologic technologies will be influenced by the clear intention of the USG to retain control over what algorithms may be used and by whom. This policy, currently spearheaded by the SKIPPER/CLIPPER/ESCROW initiative, is not going to go away - at least for a very long time. Other governments may, at present, be less vocal in their approach but that does not make their intentions any the less determined. It remains to be seen to what extent the development and spread of cryptologic technology in other counties is dominated, if not by the USG directly then at least by other governments adopting independent policies that are fully consonant with that of the USG. The history of the last quarter century indicates that there will be a remarkable degree of consonance between the US and other first world nations - particularly among those that have strong treaty ties with the US. I do not simply refer to NATO here. Its going to be a great game and, at some level, all of us with sufficient interest to read this group have a part to play. Let's play well. Though I do not read it (because of the noise level :-)), I think any follow-ups had better go to talk.politics.crypto. E-mail welcome though. -- -= Owen Lewis =- @ Tele/fax +44-(0)794-301731 ELOKA Consultancy & Project Management oml@eloka.demon.co.uk pgp 2.x public key on request