Asymmetric encryption is used when there are two end points, such as a VPN client communicating with a VPN server. Symmetric encryption is used most commonly when there is only one end point such as a database on a single computer, where you encrypt it before you store it, and you decrypt it to return it. Symmetric is also orders of magnitude fast then Asymmetrical, therefore in database applications where performance is really an issue, symmetrical encryption is most often used.
AES is a symmetrical encryption standard. The Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES is a specification for the encryption of electronic data established by the U.S. National Institute of standards and technology in 2001. It is based on the Rijndael cipher, and was developed by two Belgian cryptographers, Joan Daemen and Vincent Rijmen .
AES is based in a design principlae known as a substitution-permutation network, and is fast both in software and hardware (Schneier). Unlike its predecessor DES, AES does not use a Feistel network. AES is a variant of Rijndael which has a fixed block size of 128 bits, and a key size of 128, 192, or 256 bits. By contrast, the Rijndael specification is specified with block and key sizes that may be any multiple of 32 bits, both with a minimum of 128 and a maximum of 256 bits.
AES operates on a 4×4 colum major order matrix of bytes, although some versions of Rijndael have a larger block size and have additional columns in the state. Most AES
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