Lesson plan

MARS (cipher)

MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm. The MARS design team included Don Coppersmith, who had been involved in the creation of the previous Data Encryption Standard (DES) twenty years earlier. The project was specifically designed to resist future advances in cryptography by adopting a layered, compartmentalized approach. IBM's official report stated that MARS and Serpent were the only two finalists to implement any form of safety net with regard to would-be advances in cryptographic mathematics. The Twofish team made a similar statement about its cipher. MARS has a 128-bit block size and a variable key size of between 128 and 448 bits (in 32-bit increments). Unlike most block ciphers, MARS has a heterogeneous structure: several rounds of a cryptographic core are "jacketed" by unkeyed mixing rounds, together with key whitening.

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Article summary

MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm. The MARS design team included Don Coppersmith, who had been involved in the creation of the previous Data Encryption Standard (DES) twenty years earlier. The project was specifically designed to resist future advances in cryptography by adopting a layered, compartmentalized approach. IBM's official report stated that MARS and Serpent were the only two finalists to implement any form of safety net with regard to would-be advances in cryptographic mathematics. The Twofish team made a similar statement about its cipher. MARS has a 128-bit block size and a variable key size of between 128 and 448 bits (in 32-bit increments). Unlike most block ciphers, MARS has a heterogeneous structure: several rounds of a cryptographic core are "jacketed" by unkeyed mixing rounds, together with key whitening.

Key claims

  1. publication date: 2004 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the publication date is "2004". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  4. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1371973860

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.