don@allegra.UUCP (D. Mitchell) (04/06/84)
With the source to Lucifer published, I have a few comments. Lucifer is an ancestor of DES. I have heard rumors that it can be broken by Key Reestimation. For you would-be crypto hackers, let me tantalize you with the following fact. I have an implementation of DES written in C that encrypts a block in 1 millisecond on a VAX 780 (8000 chars/sec). I guess I should see if I can get it released for you all. I honestly do not think it can be done faster, but it took a long time for me to see the trick to go beyond about 3 or 4 milliseconds per block. So, as they say at IBM: THINK!