| General | |
|---|---|
| Designers | Phil Zimmermann |
| First published | 1991 |
| Cipher detail | |
| Key sizes | 8 to 2048 bits |
| Block sizes | 2048 bits |
| Rounds | 1–8 |
In cryptography, BassOmatic is the symmetric-key cipher designed by Phil Zimmermann as part of his email encryption software PGP (in the first release, version 1.0). Comments in the source code indicate that he had been designing the cipher since as early as 1988, but it was not publicly released until 1991. After Eli Biham pointed out to him several serious weaknesses in the BassOmatic algorithm over lunch at the 1991 CRYPTO conference,[1] Zimmermann replaced it with IDEA in subsequent versions of PGP.
The name is explained in this comment from the source code: "BassOmatic gets its name from an old Dan Aykroyd Saturday Night Live skit involving a blender and a whole fish. The BassOmatic algorithm does to data what the original BassOmatic did to the fish."