Block cipher/External Links

Please sort and annotate in a user-friendly manner and consider archiving the URLs behind the links you provide. See also related web sources.

FAQ documents

There are no FAQs specifically on block ciphers, but these ciphers are covered in cryptography FAQs.

• RSA Laboratories' Frequently Asked Questions About Today's Cryptography, a good introduction but not up-to-date
• Index of cryptography FAQs with links to the ten parts of the main cryptography FAQ, plus a few others. The main section on block ciphers is in part 5 of the crypto FAQ.

AES links

• AES Lounge, extensive information, including tables of cryptanalytic results and links to hardware implementations. Vincent Rijmen, one of the designers of AES, is part of the research group that maintains this.
• NIST page, official page for the AES standard
• software implementations from Helger Lipmaa
• software implementations from Brian Gladwin

Homepages for block ciphers

These pages are all maintained by the cipher designers. They include links to the design papers, to implementations, and often to attacks. We list them alphabetically.

• Blowfish
• Camellia
• Hasty Pudding
• LOKI97
• MARS
• RC5 and RC6
• SEED
• Serpent
• TEA
• Threefish
• Twofish

RFCs for block ciphers

These RFCs give specifications for the block ciphers themselves.

• RFC 2040, RC5
• RFC 2144, CAST-128
• RFC 2612, CAST-256
• RFC 3713, Camellia
• RFC 4629, SEED

There are other RFCs covering block cipher modes of operation and how these ciphers should be used in protocols such as IPsec, Open PGP, SSL and SSH. For details, see the linked articles or use RFC search.

Online courses

• Godzilla crypto tutorial from Peter Gutmann, 973 slides in twelve sections, PDF format. Section two has the block cipher overview.
• Self-study course in block cipher cryptanalysis from Bruce Schneier, PDF format

Literature surveys

• A Report on Block Ciphers (Literature Survey), concentrating on Feistel ciphers, from the Indian National Aeronautics Lab
• Survey and benchmark of block ciphers for wireless sensor networks, partly literature survey and partly requirements analysis for wireless applications
• Cryptanalysis of Block Ciphers: A Survey by Standaert et al.
• S-Box Design: A Literature Survey from Terry Ritter

Other links

• The Block Cipher Lounge was once an excellent index of current research, with links to design papers and cryptanalytic results for all the well-known block ciphers. It still has some good links but is now quite out-of-date.
• Several of the books in our bibliography are available as free PDF downloads.