CRYPTREC

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Cryptrec ( Crypt ography R esearch and E valuation C ommittee ) was approved by the Japanese established government to cryptographic assess techniques for public or industrial use and recommend. It's in many areas with the NESSIE project of the EU and the process of the Find Advanced Encryption Standard of NIST of USA comparable.

Comparison with NESSIE

The algorithms recommended in NESSIE's selection and CRYPTREC's draft proposals overlap in parts and contradict each other in others. Both projects employ some of the best crypto experts and actual (or apparent) conflicts in selections should be studied very carefully. For example, CRYPTREC recommends some 64- bit block encryptions and NESSIE none, but in contrast to NESSIE, CRYPTREC was also commissioned to take existing standards and practices into account.

Similar differences in the area of ​​responsibility justify the fact that CRYPTREC recommends at least one stream cipher with RC4 (and NESSIE, remarkably, does not recommend any of the ones investigated in the context of the project). RC4 is often used in the SSL / TLS protocol; nevertheless, CRYPTREC recommends its use only with 128-bit keys .

The same applies to CRYPTREC's inclusion of 160-bit cryptographic hash functions , despite the recommendation to avoid these in new systems . CRYPTREC has been exceptionally cautious about investigating variations and modifications of the techniques, some of which have resulted in detailed recommendations.

Background and sponsors

CRYPTREC has staff from Japanese universities, industry and government. As of May 2000, several agencies examining methods and techniques for implementing "e-government" were merged. It is sponsored by

  • Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry
  • Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs and Post and Telecommunications
  • the Information Technology Promotion Agency

Recommended techniques

In June 2000 and August 2001 the committee called for the submission of techniques and received 63 proposals. In addition, techniques recommended elsewhere and / or classified as important (for Japan) have been included.

After progress reports published in 2001, 2002 and 2003, a draft proposal was published in August 2003.

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