# Would Triple DES-X with 7 keys be much slower than standard Triple DES?

Since a single hardware pass of an XOR with a 64 bit key is very fast, would Triple DES-X using seven 64 bit keys used in the following manner be virtually identical in terms of code size, memory consumption, and execution speed to 3DES?

You have four 128 bit keys and three 64 bit keys.

You take a 128 bit block of plaintext.

You break it into two 64 bit block-halves in the following columnar transposition based fashion.

The bits at even indexes go into one half and the bits at odd indexes go into the other half, so the halves are intermingled.

You take the first 128 bit key and XOR the entire 128 bit block.

You take the first 64 bit key and encrypt each 64 bit half-block with DES independently of each other.

You treat the result as that round's 128 bits of ciphertext and repeat the 128 bit columnar transposition, importantly inter-mixing both half-blocks again based on odd-even indexing.

You take the second 128 bit key and XOR the entire block as one.

You then take the second 64 bit key and DES both 64 bit half-blocks independently.

You then repeat the columnar transposition-XOR-DES process for the third time.

Finally, you XOR the entire 128 bit block with the 7th 128 bit key.

Additionally, would it be significantly stronger? Would it still suffer from the same block size based vulnerability of DES-X?

• I hardly understand your question. Do you process the message? XOR (Key 7) DES (K8,( XOR (Key 4) DES (K5, (XOR (K1) DES (K1,M) XOR (Key 3)) ), XOR (Key 6)) XOR (Key 9). Why do you need 3DES or DES-X? 64 - block ciphers are vulnerable, see sweet32. Why do you need DES at all. Use AES that is faster than 3DES. – kelalaka Feb 15 at 16:25
• Sorry, I incorrectly explained. You Xor with Key 1, DES with Key 2, XOR with Key 3, DES with key 4, XOR with Key 5, DES with Key 6, and XOR with Key 7. – user227162 Feb 18 at 5:30
• This is really unclear. However they answer to "Would it still suffer from the same block size based vulnerability of DES-X?" is a definite "yes". Don't use an encryption algorithm with a 64-bit block size. – Future Security Feb 18 at 20:11
• This feels like a fairly standard SPN with DES as the (keyed) S-Box and this "columnar transposition" as the permutation. Chances are this will be covered by some theoretical SPN results. – SEJPM Feb 19 at 10:59
• This recent paper has a bunch of references on the topic of provable security for SPNs (including ones with secret s-boxes) which will probably greatly help in answering this question. – SEJPM Feb 19 at 12:53

Well, there's a fairly obvious CPA attack that uses circa $$2^{34}$$ or so chosen plaintexts, and about $$2^{120}$$ trial DES operations, and so cryptographical strength is not greatly better than standard 3DES.