How to publish a cipher (concept)? In the last months I was searching for a subject for my bachelor thesis. I came up with an idea for a new cipher concept that works by combining already known techniques in a (hopefully) new way.

So I talked to our professor for cryptography. Although she could not find any obvious weaknesses she mentioned that the review of a cipher is an ongoing and protracted process and therefore not suited as a subject for a bachelor thesis.


Is there a way to publish the concept to get some reviews?
What could one do to prevent the idea from falling into oblivion somewhere on my hard drive?


Update

I totally understood her reasons why this subject is not suitable. The question was more about the possible ways I could evolve, publish or analyze the idea (independently from my thesis). Sorry for the confusion this might have caused.
First : Welcome to Crypto.SE.

Even though you are quite young, it should not be a reason for someone to stop you : Alan Turing was 23 (still undergraduate) when he undermined the work of Alonzo Church (on untyped $\lambda$-Calculus). I'm not saying you should always provide your idea, but if you can defend them, have fun.

About your cipher : The first thing you should do, is to analyze your own cipher (Differential Cryptanalysis... Linear Cryptanalysis...) An overkill approach would be in the same way that Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen did for Rijndael. If you submit a cipher, one would expect at least a formal analysis of why you think this is a good idea. One is unlikely to spend time to review your work if you did not prove your part at the beginning. However, the same principle apply as writing clever code : 


  Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
  - Brian Kernighan


If you can't break a block cipher, it doesn't mean that other won't.

Some hint about how to start :
- How do you test the security of your cipher?
- How do I test my encryption? (absolute amateur)

Most ciphers are published (or at least get known) in competitions such as :


AES in 1997,
CRYPTREC,
NESSIE,
or at the moment CAESAR (Authenticated Encryption).


And if you think your idea is really great, you can also try to submit it as a paper to a workshop, Journal or conference. Here are some examples (and accepted) submissions that you probably never heard of :


SQUARE
SHARK


Good Luck !