
       The classic comment on new encryption algorithms comes from
Friedman:

	"No new cypher is worth considering unless it comes 
	from someone who has already broken a very hard one."

Historically, Friedman has been right.  It's really hard to develop
a good cypher.  IBM's Lucifer, the precursor to DES, turns out to have
been fatally flawed.  Most of the DES-like systems other than DES seem
to be vulnerable to differential cryptanalysis.  The first two tries at
public key encryption (remember knapsack cyphers?) were broken.  Most
if not all of the machine cyphers of the electromechanical era were
broken eventually.  Attempts in the computer era to home-brew encryption
have been disappointing; the classic "A survey of data insecurity packages"
in Cryptologia contains analyses and breaking techniques for a few of the
popular "security packages" of the late 1980s.

        A new, proprietary algorithm?  No way.

        If the US is permitting general export of this thing, it has
to be weak; that's how the current regulations work.  Currently there's
a willingness to allow systems with short keys (32 bits appears to be
no problem; the 56 bits of DES are too many) or weak algorithms
(I think Word Perfect qualifies under that rule) to be exported.
I can't believe these guys shepherded their technique through the 
PTO and the State Department's Arms Control Division without finding that out.

					John Nagle