IP: GOST for sale

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 03:43:25 +0100 (MET)
From: Mats Bergstrom <asgaard () sos sll se>




According to a short article in a Swedish newspaper (DN)
with the title 'Spy Code of KGB can make computers safe', 
JETICO INC., located in Finland (Tammerfors), introduced
a new crypto system on the world market last week. It's 
based on GOST, the Russian federal standard algorithm.
This product, called BestCrypt, is implemented at least
partly in hardware. Alledgedly it uses 'GOST 28147-89',
whatever that stands for.


GOST is probably very secure - a huge keyspace (256 bits) and
KGB would not have left a trapdoor for NSA to take advantage
of, would they?


The newspaper article ends:


'The Finnish entrepreneurs asseverate that their
Russian colleagues have never had anything to do
with the KGB.'


Mats