DES was adopted at a US standard on this day in 1977; of course, you'd be nuts to use it these days, so at least use 3-DES at a minimum, if not AES. I've heard some odd stories about DES, such as No Such Agency having a hand in fiddling with the S-boxes which turned out to actually strengthen them and what did they know that we didn't, and differential cryptanalysis, etc. -- Dave _______________________________________________ The cryptography mailing list cryptography@metzdowd.com https://www.metzdowd.com/mailman/listinfo/cryptography