DES was developed by IBM in the early 1970's, and is currently the most widely-used data encryption algorithm. However, for over 12 years since its standardisation in 1977, nobody had found a method of breaking DES. Now, 20 years later, there are three published methods of finding the key in less time than exhaustive key-search. In this report, we provide descriptions of DES and two of the most recent attacks on DES. We will show how DES can be implemented in the C programming language, and optimised to run efficiently on 32-bit computers. We also implement algorithms from the two cryptanalysis methods, and provide experimental proof that the attacks work.

Click Here to download this article