BATON BATON

BATON - Definition

Related Words: Annulet, Argent, Armory, Arms, Azure, Badge, Badges, Bar, Bastardy, Bat, Bearings, Bend, Billet, Billy

BATON is a Type 1 encryption algorithm, used broadly throughout the U.S. government to secure all types of classified information.

BATON has a 128-bit block size and a 160-bit key. Some (16?) bits of the key are checksum material; they do not affect the security of the algorithm itself but rather prevent unauthorized keys from being loaded if a BATON device ends up in the hands of an adversary. BATON is fast: on the AIM chip, it encrypts data at 129% of the clock rate, as opposed to 76% for DES, 25% for Triple DES, and 4% for SAVILLE. Its speed and parallelizability were major factors in its selection.

The Sierra II documentation suggests that BATON may be related to MEDLEY.

Usage

BATON is used in a variety of products and standards:

  • APCO Project 25 (Public standard for land mobile radio) (Algorithm IDs 01 and 41)
  • PKCS #11 (Public standard for encryption tokens)
  • CDSA/CSSM (Another public standard)
  • HAIPE/HAIPIS (NSA's version of IPsec)
  • FNBDT (Advanced flexible voice security protocol)
  • Thales Datacryptor 2000 (a British network-encryption box)
  • SecNet-11 (a crypto-secure 802.11b PC Card, based on the Sierra chip)
  • Fortezza Plus (a PC Card product, used in the STE)
  • SafeXcel-3340 (a HAIPIS network-encryption box)
  • Numerous embeddable encryption modules: AIM, Cypris, MYK-85, Sierra (microchip), etc.

External links


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