First, I found this interesting site by John Savard which discusses the various crypto designs since... well, since pencil and paper systems. Notable is the detailed discussion of the declassified SIGABA machine: http://www.quadibloc.com/crypto/jscrypt.htm
Next, can anyone point me in the direction of any web references on using FPGAs to implement cryptographic (or other) algorithms? I would like the speed of hardware, but feel that it is necessary to amend the algorithms as the state of the art advances. I've also wanted to do some low-level hardware interfacing. Have there been any attempts to construct ciphers based on a key or random number? It would be interesting to see a family of ciphers from which one is chosen periodically, in addition to re-keying. I suppose that one could permute S-tables in Feistel-type ciphers fairly easily (a la traditional Unix crypt() salt), but have there been any more general efforts, perhaps using virtual machines or lisp? I do realize that an algorithm is already parameterized by the key, but the general structure remains the same. I found this amazing paper on sandboxing x86 code (software-based fault isolation), and due to some engineering the overhead is pretty minimal (20% on SPECint2000): http://www.usenix.org/events/sec06/tech/mccamant.html Using a method like this between two systems with the same instruction set, the crypto protocol initiator could even send the algorithm they want to use to encrypt, compress, or otherwise transform the rest of the session, and the recipient could ostensibly execute it safely, and vice-versa. If any of you are die-hard assembly or algorithm mavens, this book might interest you: http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Delight-Henry-Warren-Jr/dp/0201914654 -- Enhance your calm, fellow citizen; it's just ones and zeroes. Unix "guru" for rent or hire -><- http://www.lightconsulting.com/~travis/ GPG fingerprint: 9D3F 395A DAC5 5CCC 9066 151D 0A6B 4098 0C55 1484 --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]