Draft FIPS for the Advanced Encryption Standard

Several people wrote with news that NIST has released a draft standard for the AES. They're inviting public comment, so if the NSA has added a backdoor to Rijndael, now would be a good time to find it.... :)

Comments

Public review is finished after two years or so

[Paul Crowley]

NIST started the process of designing a successor to AES many years ago, and fifteen algorithms were submitted from all over the world as candidate successors. The eventual winner comes from a team from Belgium; it's been thoroughly examined by the worlds best cryptanalysts and I don't think anyone thinks there's going to be a useful break.

So long as this FIPS is simply a formal description of the algorithm we were all examining (and it appears to be), there's no problem. NIST have done all the right things here.
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Rijndael team's new cipher

[Paul Crowley]

Far from resting on their laurels, the Rijndael team have been busy with new cipher design work. Check out their latest creation, Noekon, designed for simple implementation and resistance to differential power attacks and other side channel attacks.
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