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IT
Security
Five Finalists for AES Selected
Researchers
from 12 different countries submitted 15 candidates for the Advanced
Encryption Standard—the new encoding method that eventually
will be adopted by the federal government—a year ago. Since
then, cryptographers have tried to find ways to "attack"
the different algorithms, looking for weaknesses that would compromise
the encrypted information. Five of the 15 candidates are finalists.
The
AES will replace the Data Encryption Standard, which NIST adopted
in 1977 as the required encryption method for all federal agencies.
DES is used widely in the private sector as well.
NIST
chose the following five contenders as finalists for the AES:
- MARS—developed
by International Business Machines Corp. of Armonk, N.Y.;
- RC6™—developed
by RSA Laboratories of Bedford, Mass.;
- Rijndael—developed
by Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen of Belgium;
- Serpent—developed
by Ross Anderson, Eli Biham and Lars Knudsen of the United Kingdom,
Israel and Norway respectively; and
- Twofish—developed
by Bruce Schneier, John Kelsey, Doug Whiting, David Wagner,
Chris Hall and Niels Ferguson, all of the United States.
NIST
is making the five finalists available for intensified study.
Analysis of the finalists will be presented at a conference in
April 2000. NIST is accepting comments on the candidates through
May 15, 2000. It then will review the input and draft the proposed
AES (incorporating one or more of the algorithms) for public comment.
Plans call for the standard to be completed by the summer of 2001.
A
detailed report on the evaluation process, "Status
Report on the First Round of the Development of the Advanced Encryption
Standard," is available on the AES web site at www.nist.gov/aes.
Media Contact:
Philip Bulman, (301) 975-5661 
MEP
California Center Helps Aerospace
Parts Manufacturer Fly High
UCAR
Composites Inc. (abbreviated UCI), an Irvine, Calif., manufacturer
of high-quality precision tooling for aerospace parts, is a true
small business success story. Jerry Anthony, the founder and president,
teamed with a handful of employees to obtain start-up funds and
then, over several years, built a significant customer base using
state-of-the-art computers and manufacturing systems. However,
electronic speed did not eliminate all of the production imbalances
and bottlenecks within the company. UCI needed a software system
to integrate design, production, accounting and other processes
into a smooth operation.
With
the guidance of the California Manufacturing Technology Center,
an affiliate of the nationwide NIST
Manufacturing Extension Partnership network, UCI surveyed
employees on their requirements for a software system and then
used the input to select the best vendor. CMTC also helped UCI
develop a strategic plan that brought in $2.5 million for the
purchase of two top-of-the-line machining centers.
The
benefits? In a recent three-year period, sales increased 60 percent
and sales per employee were twice the level of UCI’s competitors.
The
NIST MEP centers network serves smaller manufacturers in all 50
states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. For more information,
call (800) MEP-4-MFG (637-4634). To learn more about CMTC, call
(800) 300-2682 or visit the center’s World Wide Web site
at www.cmtc.com.
Media Contact:
Jan Kosko, (301) 975-2767
Chemistry
Cooperation
Yields Better Understanding of Alternative Refrigerants
In
1990, the International Energy Agency established a program called
Annex 18 to consider the thermophysical properties of the leading
environmentally acceptable alternatives to the CFC refrigerants.
The objectives were to provide a forum in which information and
data could be exchanged, and the representation of refrigerant
fluids could be standardized through the publication of comprehensive,
internationally accepted property formulations. NIST, representing
the United States, acted as the coordinator for the eight countries
that participated in the activities of Annex 18 while Japan assisted
in coordinating two phases of the work.
Annex
18 has completed its work, which resulted in the adoption of international
standards for the thermodynamic properties for the refrigerants
R134a, R123, R32, R125, and R143a. Evaluations of property models
for mixtures of these fluids facilitated the adoption of a new
approach for computing the thermodynamic properties of mixtures.
The evaluations, and the underlying data surveys and compilations,
have contributed to many national and international property compilations.
The net result is reduced uncertainty (and variation among sources)
for the property values used by refrigeration design engineers.
Further
work remains because new fluids and mixtures are being proposed
continually. Refrigerant mixtures, especially, present needs for
additional data and comprehensive models.
A
paper outlining the issues and results serves as the final report
for Annex 18; it is available from Sarabeth
Harris, MC 104, NIST, Boulder, Colo. 80303-3337; (303) 497-3237.
Ask for paper no. 28-99.
Media Contact:
Fred McGehan Boulder, (303)
497-3246
Trade
New Standards Expert
on the Job in Europe
Suzanne
R. Sene, an expert on international telecommunications regulatory
policy, has begun serving as the NIST standards attaché at the
U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. On assignment
from her position as senior policy advisor in the Commerce
Department’s National
Telecommunications and Information Administration, Sene monitors
standards-related activities in the European Union, this nation’s
largest trading partner. She also helps U.S. exporters resolve
questions and issues as they work to demonstrate compliance with
EU regulations and standards.
Posted
at U.S. embassies or co-located with national standards bodies
in host countries, NIST’s five standards attachés have been
credited with helping U.S. companies and government officials
to reduce regulatory and other technical obstacles to the sale
of U.S. goods and services in foreign markets. NIST has stationed
a standards expert at the EU mission since 1992. Sene succeeds
Helen Delaney, who completed her three-year stint as standards
attaché in late 1998.
A
resident of Alexandria, Va., Sene managed NTIA’s program
on European telecommunications and information policy developments,
focusing on their effects on U.S. businesses. She has served as
an advisor to U.S. officials participating on ministerial level
meetings on trade and global economic cooperation, including the
G-7 Ministerial Conference on the Information Society in 1995.
During her 17 years with NTIA, Sene has received two Gold Medals
from the Commerce Department and three commendations for outstanding
performance. Before joining NTIA, she worked in the International
Economic Affairs Department of the National Association of Manufacturers.
In
addition to Europe, NIST standards attachés are stationed in Brazil,
India, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.
For
more information on NIST's global network of standards experts,
contact Elisabeth Parker,
NIST Office
of Standards Services, (301) 975-3089. Sene can be reached
in the U.S. Mission’s Office of the Foreign Commercial Counselor,
32-2-513-3830; suzanne.sene@mail.doc.gov.
Media Contact:
Mark Bello, (301) 975-3776
Information Technology
Emerging DVD Standards
to be Focus of Winter Meeting
Digital
versatile disc, or DVD, technology is beginning to provide a stunning
new way to store everything from short songs downloaded from the
Internet to lengthy movies.
A
typical DVD can hold seven to eight times as much information
as a compact disc of the same physical size. DVDs can store music,
film, computerized information and, in the future, digitized X-rays
and other medical images. The growth of this new industry will
depend, to some extent, on cooperation among manufacturers. Consumers
will want to be able to use any DVD in any DVD player, in the
same way that they can use a CD in any commercially available
CD player.
NIST
is holding a workshop
to examine emerging industry standards that could be critical
to the success of the DVD industry. Workshop speakers will include
executives of major American and Japanese companies with an interest
in the industry. The workshop will address issues such as copyright
protection in relation to MP3, emerging DVD authoring technologies,
electronic books and web-based DVD products.
The
workshop, co-hosted by the Optical Storage Technology Association,
will take place Nov. 30-Dec. 1, 1999, at NIST in Gaithersburg,
Md. More information is available at www.nist.gov/dvd99.
Media Contact:
Philip Bulman, (301) 975-5661
Physics
Proposals Sought
for Precision Measurement Grants
NIST
is seeking project proposals for two research grants for fiscal
year 2001 in the field of precision measurement and fundamental
constants. NIST Precision Measurement Grants are awarded each
year to faculty members of U.S. universities or colleges for work
in determining values for fundamental constants, investigating
related physical phenomena or developing new, fundamental measurement
methods. Each Precision Measurement Grant of $50,000 for one year
may be renewed by NIST for up to two additional years for a total
of $150,000.
Prospective
candidates must submit summaries of their proposed projects and
biographical information to NIST by Feb. 1, 2000. The application
should include a pre-proposal summary of not more than five double-spaced
pages outlining the objective, motivation and technical approach
of the research and the amount and source of current funding for
the research, together with a concise biographical sketch of the
applicant and a list of the applicant’s most important publications.
On
the basis of this material, four to eight semifinalists will be
selected to submit more detailed proposals.
Submit
10 copies of the pre-proposal summary to Barry N. Taylor, NIST,
100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8401, Gaithersburg, Md. 20899-8401. For
more information, contact Taylor at (301) 975-4220, or visit the
Precision Measurement Grants World Wide Web page at physics.nist.gov/ResOpp/grants/grants.html.
Media Contact:
Linda Joy, (301) 975-4403
Time
and Frequency
New Microtraps
Better Capture the Elusive Laser-Cooled Ion
Tinier
is better in the minuscule world of trapped ions, which are used
in research on quantum entanglement and quantum computing. The
more closely confined the ions, the more precisely they can be
manipulated. NIST has developed a method of constructing ion traps
using gold-on-ceramic lithographic techniques, which enables smaller,
more precise and more complex geometries than standard machining
techniques.
The
new microtraps have been used to trap and crystallize small numbers
of laser-cooled ions. Tightly focused laser beams then drive individual
ions into desired quantum states and interrogate their state.
One experiment trapped two ions only 5 micrometers (0.0002 inch)
apart, with a laser beam illuminating only one ion at a time.
Another
experiment shuttled ions along the axis of the trap and separated
them by applying pulsed voltages to the trap electrodes. This
technique may relax the laser focusing requirements for quantum
logic gates and individual ion detection and may lead to trapping
more complex arrays of ions by moving ions between accumulators.
For
more information, contact Chris Myatt, (303) 497-7295, myatt@boulder.nist.gov.
Media Contact:
Collier Smith (Boulder), (303)
497-3198
Editor: Michael Newman
HTML conversion: Crissy Wines
Last updated: August 17, 1999
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