| | FIPS 46-2 - (DES), Data Encryption Standard |
 | | Data that is considered sensitive by the responsible authority, data that has a high value, or data that represents a high value should be cryptographically protected if it is vulnerable to unauthorized disclosure or undetected modification during transmission or while in storage. |
 | | The algorithm is designed to encipher and decipher blocks of data consisting of 64 bits under control of a 64-bit key.** Deciphering must be accomplished by using the same key as for enciphering, but with the schedule of addressing the key bits altered so that the deciphering process is the reverse of the enciphering process. |
 | | That is, the output of the algorithm has bit 40 of the preoutput block as its first bit, bit 8 as its second bit, and so on, until bit 25 of the preoutput block is the last bit of the output. |
| www.itl.nist.gov /fipspubs/fip46-2.htm (4515 words) |