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DES-X
EntityQ2454245· pop 13· linked from 185 articles

Also known as DESX

In cryptography, DES-X (or DESX) is a variant on the DES (Data Encryption Standard) symmetric-key block cipher intended to increase the complexity of a brute-force attack. The technique used to increase the complexity is called key whitening.

Wikidata facts

Instance of
block cipher
Designed by
Ron Rivest
Show 2 more facts
publication date
1984-00-00
block size
64
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Encyclopedic overview

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In cryptography, DES-X (or DESX) is a variant on the DES (Data Encryption Standard) symmetric-key block cipher intended to increase the complexity of a brute-force attack. The technique used to increase the complexity is called key whitening.

The original DES algorithm was specified in 1976 with a 56-bit key size: 256 possibilities for the key. There was criticism that an exhaustive search might be within the capabilities of large governments, particularly the United States' National Security Agency (NSA). One scheme to increase the key size of DES without substantially altering the algorithm was DES-X, proposed by Ron Rivest in May 1984.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “DES-X” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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