A U.S. Government standard [FP197] (the successor to DES) that (a) specifies "the AES algorithm", which is a symmetric block cipher that is based on Rijndael and uses key sizes of 128, 192, or 256 bits to operate on a 128-bit block, and (b) states policy for using that algorithm to protect unclassified, sensitive data.
A U.S. Government standard [FP197] (the successor to DES) that (a) specifies "the AES algorithm", which is a symmetric block cipher that is based on Rijndael and uses key sizes of 128, 192, or 256 bits to operate on a 128-bit block, and (b) states policy for using that algorithm to protect unclassified, sensitive data.
Tutorial: Rijndael was designed to handle additional block sizes and key lengths that were not adopted in the AES. Rijndael was selected by NIST through a public competition that was held to find a successor to the DEA; the other finalists were MARS, RC6, Serpent, and Twofish.