README
1NAME
2
3 Crypt::Serpent - Crypt::CBC compliant Serpent block cipher encryption module
4
5SYNOPSIS
6
7 use Crypt::Serpent;
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9 my $cipher = new Crypt::Serpent $key;
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11 my $ciphertext = $cipher->encrypt($plaintext);
12 my $plaintext = $cipher->decrypt($ciphertext);
13
14DESCRIPTION
15
16 From the Tropical Software Serpent page...
17
18 "Serpent was designed by Ross Anderson, Eli Biham and Lars Knudsen
19 as a candidate for the Advanced Encryption Standard. It has been
20 selected as one of the five finalists in the AES competition.
21 Serpent is faster than DES and more secure than Triple DES. It
22 provides users with a very high level of assurance that no shortcut
23 attack will be found. To achieve this, the algorithm's designers
24 limited themselves to well understood cryptography mechanisms, so
25 that they could rely on the wide experience and proven techniques
26 of block cipher cryptanalysis. The algorithm uses twice as many
27 rounds as are necessary to block all currently known shortcut
28 attacks. This means that Serpent should be safe against as yet
29 unknown attacks that may be capable of breaking the standard 16
30 rounds used in many types of encryption today. However, the fact
31 that Serpent uses so many rounds means that it is the slowest of
32 the five AES finalists. But this shouldn't be an issue because it
33 still outperforms Triple DES. The algorithm's designers maintain
34 that Serpent has a service life of at least a century."
35
36 "Serpent is a 128-bit block cipher, meaning that data is encrypted
37 and decrypted in 128-bit chunks. The key length can vary, but for
38 the purposes of the AES it is defined to be either 128, 192, or 256
39 bits. This block size and variable key length is standard among all
40 AES candidates and was one of the major design requirements specified
41 by NIST. The Serpent algorithm uses 32 rounds, or iterations of the
42 main algorithm."
43
44SEE ALSO
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46 http://www.tropsoft.com/strongenc/serpent.htm
47
48AUTHOR
49
50 John Hughes (jhughes@frostburg.edu)
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52