On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 02:45:47PM +1100, Greg Rose wrote: > At 12:27 PM 11/27/2003, Thor Lancelot Simon wrote: > >RC4 is extremely weak for some applications. A block cipher is greatly > >preferable. > > I'm afraid that I can't agree with this howling logical error. RC4 is > showing its age, but there are other stream ciphers that are acceptable,
Sorry if I mislead -- that was intended as two separate statements, and I was also in a bit of a hurry. Yes, of course there are applications for which a stream cipher is preferable to a block cipher. However, in my experience, programmers often choose RC4 (or another fast stream cipher) by using speed as their only criterion, and then end up applying it in applications in which a block cipher would be a better choice. Thor --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
