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DES Review
The Data Encryption Standard is an example of a symmetric-key block cipher that utilizes a Feistel network.
DES Is Broken
In 1997 the DESCHALL Project was the first group to publicly break DES encryption and won $10,000 for their efforts! DES was broken by a simple brute force attack, which is possible due to its small key size of just 56 bits.
DES is no longer considered secure and should not be used for any new applications. However, it's still important to understand how it works and to know that it should be avoided.