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Concept
Skipjack (cipher)
Summary
In cryptography, Skipjack is a block cipher—an algorithm for encryption—developed by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). Initially classified, it was originally intended for use in the controversial Clipper chip. Subsequently, the algorithm was declassified.
Skipjack was proposed as the encryption algorithm in a US government-sponsored scheme of key escrow, and the cipher was provided for use in the Clipper chip, implemented in tamperproof hardware. Skipjack is used only for encryption; the key escrow is achieved through the use of a separate mechanism known as the Law Enforcement Access Field (LEAF).
The algorithm was initially secret, and was regarded with considerable suspicion by many for that reason. It was declassified on 24 June 1998, shortly after its basic design principle had been discovered independently by the public cryptography community.
To ensure public confidence in the algorithm, several academic researchers from outside the government were called in to evaluate the algorithm. The researchers found no problems with either the algorithm itself or the evaluation process. Moreover, their report gave some insight into the (classified) history and development of Skipjack:
[Skipjack] is representative of a family of encryption algorithms developed in 1980 as part of the NSA suite of "Type I" algorithms... Skipjack was designed using building blocks and techniques that date back more than forty years. Many of the techniques are related to work that was evaluated by some of the world's most accomplished and famous experts in combinatorics and abstract algebra. Skipjack's more immediate heritage dates to around 1980, and its initial design to 1987...The specific structures included in Skipjack have a long evaluation history, and the cryptographic properties of those structures had many prior years of intense study before the formal process began in 1987.
In March 2016, NIST published a draft of its cryptographic standard which no longer certifies Skipjack for US government applications.
Official source
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