Compatibility

[L. Sassaman]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, 14 Apr 2000, Werner Koch wrote:

> Most banks here in Germany prefer RIPEMD160 over SHA1; I don't know
> why ;-)

Ah, politics. I love the fact that practically all of the AES candidates
have non-US cryptographers working on them... :)

Regardless of who developed SHA-1, it is the opinion of numerous
well-respected cryptographers both in the USA and abroad that it is sound,
and that DSS is correct in requiring it.

An aside: those mysterious S-Box values in DES turned out to be not a back
door placed by No Such Agency, but instead a clever construction to defend
against differential cryptanalysis. When the NSA does things, they
generally do them well... DES is cryptographically sound; 56 bit is just
too damn small now.

SHA-1 is far less controversial than the DES S-Boxes. RIPEMD160 could be
just as good, but I trust SHA-1 with DSS more simply based on the
collective opinion of the industry experts.


- --Len.

__

L. Sassaman

System Administrator                |  "All of the chaos
Technology Consultant               |   Makes perfect sense..."
icq.. 10735603                      |
pgp.. finger://ns.quickie.net/rabbi |              --Joe Diffie



-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Comment: OpenPGP Encrypted Email Preferred.

iD8DBQE49uthPYrxsgmsCmoRAq4wAKCK1KaWpj2mIA5l4gZuyMbmM+/aJACgyWuD
VIqpvFTAePuUr5tLP+AOR/Q=
=JLh8
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----