henryb@microsoft.UUCP (Henry Burgess) (07/23/85)
The other day in a meeting I jokingly suggested that an instruction to return
the number of bits in a word (ala the CDC 6600 instruction) in one clock cycle
be added to a chip. Then I wondered, if I could specify any new instructions,
what would I like to see added, say, to the instruction set of the 286 in my AT.
So I ask all of you kind folks, what would be nice instructions for encrypting
and decrypting, for cryptanalysis? I am interested in the blue-sky, such as
the DES as an instruction, although that would probably take too much chip
area. How about more simple things, and how about generality. It would
easy to add a big shift register and a register to hold a feedback function
(I would think). Perhaps a rotor machine. But what I don't know
is what primitives are not in the average instruction set that are easy add?
Another interesting question is what would happen if these instructions were
available on a common micro? Might it be a good idea NOT to have them, does
the NSA worry about such things?
Cheers
Henry Burgess
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