MARS - Definition and Overview

In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher which was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) process; the cipher was selected as a finalist. The design team included Don Coppersmith who had been involved in the creation of the previous Data Encryption Standard (DES) twenty years earlier.

MARS has a 128-bit block size and a variable key size of between 128 and 448 bits (in 32-bit increments). Unlike most block ciphers, MARS has a heterogeneous structure. Several rounds of a cryptographic core are "jacketed" by unkeyed mixing rounds.

External links

• IBM's page on MARS (http://www.research.ibm.com/security/mars.html)
• SCAN's entry on MARS (http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hopwood/crypto/scan/cs.html#MARS)
• John Savard's description of MARS (http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/crypto/co040406.htm)