In its Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) programme the US National Institute of Standards and Technology has selected 15 algorithms for consideration as candidates to replace the now obsolescent DES standard.
This talk will look at some of the issues that the author has faced in implementing all 15 candidates from scratch. The coverage will focus on implementation and performance rather than on security or cryptanalysis. In particular the issues involved in using algorithm specifications as a basis for implementation in C will be discussed, as will some of the surprises involved in running such code on modern pipelined/semi-parallel architecures such as the Pentium II. The talk will also cover an interesting aspect of performance optimisation for Serpent.