What is "gost"

n. (obsolete form of lang=en ghost)

The GOST block cipher, defined in the standard GOST 28147-89, is a Soviet and Russian government standard symmetric key block cipher. The original standard did not give the cipher any name, however, the most recent revision of the standard, GOST R 34.12-2015, specifies that it may be referred to as Magma. Also based on this block cipher is the GOST hash function.

Developed in the 1970s, the standard had been marked "Top Secret" and then downgraded to "Secret" in 1990. Shortly after the dissolution of the USSR, it was declassified and it was released to the public in 1994. GOST 28147 was a Soviet alternative to the United States standard algorithm, DES. Thus, the two are very similar in structure.

GOST (Russian: ГОСТ) refers to a set of technical standards maintained by the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification (EASC), a regional standards organization operating under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

All sorts of regulated standards are included, with examples ranging from charting rules for design documentation to recipes and nutritional facts of Soviet-era brand names (which have now become generic, but may only be sold under the label if the technical standard is followed, or renamed if they are reformulated).

The notion of GOST has certain significance and recognition in the countries of the standards' jurisdiction. Russian Rosstandart government agency has gost.ru as website address.

The GOST hash function, defined in the standards GOST R 34.11-94 and GOST 34.311-95 is a 256-bit cryptographic hash function. It was initially defined in the Russian national standard GOST R 34.11-94 Information Technology - Cryptographic Information Security - Hash Function. The equivalent standard used by other member-states of the CIS is GOST 34.311-95.

This function must not be confused with a different Streebog hash function, which is defined in the new revision of the standard GOST R 34.11-2012.

The GOST hash function is based on the GOST block cipher.