What is the difference between Blowfish and IDEA, the two ciphers Oubliette uses?
Both algorithms are currently considered uncrackable by brute force alone. The real reason to use two ciphers is that, in the (fairly unlikely) case that a vulnerability is discovered in one of these algorithms, Oubliette users can simply switch to the other instead of throwing the program away. • Blowfish is free, but somewhat less tested than IDEA (although it is considered secure). For one thing, it provides an alternative. Also, it supports a larger key size than IDEA. block size: 64 bits key size: 256 bits Read more about Blowfish • IDEA is patented, but only in Europe, and still free for non-commercial use. However, commercial European users should choose another algorithm – if not for legal, then at least for ethical reasons. block size: 64 bits key size: 128 bits Read more about IDEA It would be easy to add more ciphers, but at the time I wrote Oubliette the RSA ciphers were still patented (not any more) and I thought the two are quite sufficient.
