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Is Blowfish Encryption Still Relevant?
Technical Details and Security Concerns
Introduction
Blowfish is a symmetric-key block cipher, designed by the American cryptographer Bruce Schneier, in 1993. It was developed as an alternative to DES, which was close to being deprecated. Offering a blend of speed, simplicity, and flexibility, Blowfish quickly garnered attention as a viable solution for securing data across various applications.
What is a symmetric-key algorithm?
Symmetric encryption is a type of encryption where only one secret key (symmetric) is used by both sides to encrypt and decrypt the exchanged data.
Symmetric-key algorithms are renowned for their efficiency and speed, rendering them ideal for a wide range of applications, particularly those involving bulk data exchange. One of the main challenges, however, is securely sharing the secret key between the communicating parties.
Other examples of symmetric-key algorithms include Twofish, DES, AES, RC4 and Serpent.
