Blowfish
Blowfish is fast, supports long keys, and is well-respected in the industry. Blowfish runs nearly 20x faster than DES. SafeHouse offers several different Blowfish key lengths: 32, 48, 56, 128 and 448. Each version runs at the same speed. The various key lengths are required for compliance with certain export control laws.
Twofish
Twofish was designed by the same scientist who invented Blowfish. Although it has not been around as long as Blowfish nor subjected to the same level of scientific scrutiny, it was a finalist in the NIST competition for choosing a new national encryption standard and is generally regarded as being superior to Blowfish in quality and speed. Twofish is available in two strengths: 128 and 256 bits. Only the 128-bit key size is compatible with SafeHouse’s administrative key recovery features.
Rijndael (AES)
The Rijndael algorithm was selected by NIST in October, 2000, to become the new official Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) for use within the U.S. Government. Rijndael is available in two strengths: 128 and 256 bits. Unlike Blowfish and Twofish, this algorithm takes longer to process at higher key strengths. The 256-bit version is approximately 40% slower than the 128-bit version. Only the 128-bit version is compatible with SafeHouse’s administrative password recovery features.
DES
DES stands for Data Encryption Standard. This algorithm has been around for over 25 years and is now believed to be vulnerable to attack since its key size is only 56 bits.
Triple DES
Triple DES is three rounds of DES. Each round uses a different permutation of your password. The algorithm is secure, yet very slow. Blowfish, Twofish and Rijndael are usually better choices than triple DES when you have the opportunity to make a choice.
