2. Stream Ciphers
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Chapter 2 of 'Understanding Cryptography' discusses stream ciphers, their comparison with block ciphers, and the importance of random number generators (RNGs) in cryptographic systems. It explains concepts such as one-time pads, linear feedback shift registers, and a modern stream cipher called Trivium, highlighting their security properties and application challenges. The chapter emphasizes that while stream ciphers may require fewer resources, they are generally less popular than block ciphers in internet security.
2. Stream Ciphers
- 1. Understanding Cryptography – A Textbook for Students and Practitioners by Christof Paar and JanPelzl www.crypto-textbook.com Chapter 2 – Stream Ciphers ver. October 29, 2009 These slides were prepared by Thomas Eisenbarth, Christof Paar and JanPelzl Modified by Sam Bowne
- 2. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl2 Some legal stuff (sorry): Terms of Use • The slides can used free of charge. All copyrights for the slides remain with the authors. • The title of the accompanying book “Understanding Cryptography” by Springer and the author’s names must remain on eachslide. • If the slides are modified, appropriate credits to the book authorsand the book title must remain within the slides. • It is not permitted to reproduce parts or all of the slides in printedform whatsoever without written consent by the authors.
- 3. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl3 Contents of this Chapter • Intro to stream ciphers • Random number generators (RNGs) • One-Time Pad (OTP) • Linear feedback shift registers (LFSRs) • Trivium: a modern stream cipher
- 4. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl4 Intro to Stream Ciphers
- 5. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Stream Ciphers in the Field of Cryptology Cryptology Cryptography Cryptanalysis Symmetric Ciphers Asymmetric Ciphers Protocols Block Ciphers Stream Ciphers Stream Ciphers were invented in 1917 by Gilbert Vernam 5
- 6. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Stream Cipher 6
- 7. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Block Cipher 7
- 8. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Stream Cipher vs. Block Cipher • Stream Ciphers • Encrypt bits individually • Usually small and fast • Common in embedded devices (e.g., A5/1 for GSM phones) • Block Ciphers: • Always encrypt a full block (several bits) • Are common for Internet applications 8
- 9. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl • Encryption and decryption are simple additions modulo 2 (aka XOR) • Encryption and decryption are the same functions xi , yi , si ∈ {0,1}• Encryption: yi = esi(xi ) = xi + si mod 2 • Decryption: xi = esi(yi ) = yi + si mod 2 ■ Encryption and Decryption with Stream Ciphers Plaintext xi, ciphertext yi and key stream si consist of individual bits 9
- 10. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Stream Cipher • Security of stream cipher depends entirely on the key stream si : • Should be random , i.e., Pr(si = 0) = Pr(si = 1) = 0.5 • Must be reproducible by sender and receiver • Synchronous Stream Cipher • Key stream depend only on the key (and possibly an initialization vector IV) • Asynchronous Stream Ciphers • Key stream depends also on the ciphertext (dotted feedback enabled) 10
- 11. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Why is Modulo 2 Addition a Good Encryption Function? • Modulo 2 addition is equivalent to XOR operation • For perfectly random key stream si , each ciphertext output bit has a 50% chance to be 0 or 1 Good statistic property forciphertext • Inverting XOR is simple, since it is the same XOR operation xi si yi 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 0 11
- 12. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl12 ■ Stream Cipher: Throughput Performance comparison of symmetric ciphers(Pentium4): Cipher Key length Mbit/s DES 56 36.95 3DES 112 13.32 AES 128 51.19 RC4 (stream cipher) (choosable) 211.34 Source: Zhao et al., Anatomy and Performance of SSL Processing, ISPASS 2005
- 14. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl14 Random Number Generators (RNGs)
- 15. ■ Random number generators (RNGs) RNG Cryptographically Secure RNG Pseudorandom NGTrue RNG Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl15
- 16. ■ True Random Number Generators (TRNGs) • Based on physical random processes: coin flipping, dice rolling, semiconductor noise, radioactive decay, mouse movement, clock jitter of digital circuits • Output stream si should have good statistical properties: Pr(si = 0) = Pr(si = 1) = 50% (often achieved bypost-processing) • Output can neither be predicted nor be reproduced Typically used for generation of keys, nonces (used only-once values) and for many other purposes Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl16
- 17. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl17 ■ Pseudorandom Number Generator (PRNG) •Generate sequences from initial seed value •Typically, output stream has good statistical properties •Output can be reproduced and can be predicted •Often computed in a recursive way: Example: rand() function in ANSIC: Most PRNGs have bad cryptographic properties!
- 18. ■ Cryptanalyzing a Simple PRNG Simple PRNG: Linear Congruential Generator S0 = seed Si+1 = A Si + B mod m, i = 0, 1, 2, ... Assume • unknown A, B and S0 as key • Size of A, B and Si to be 100 bit • 300 bits of output are known, i.e. S1, S2 and S3 Solving …directly reveals A and B. All Si can be computed easily! Bad cryptographic properties due to the linearity of most PRNGs Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl18
- 19. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl19 ■ Cryptographically Secure Pseudorandom Number Generator (CSPRNG) • Special PRNG with additional property: • Output must be unpredictable More precisely: Given n consecutive bits of output si , the following output bits sn+1 cannot be predicted (in polynomial time). • Needed in cryptography, in particular for stream ciphers • Remark: There are almost no other applications that need unpredictability, whereas many, many (technical) systems need PRNGs.
- 20. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl20 One-Time Pad (OTP)
- 21. ■ One-Time Pad (OTP) Unconditionally secure cryptosystem: • A cryptosystem is unconditionally secure if it cannot be broken even with infinite computational resources One-Time Pad • A cryptosystem developed by Mauborgne that is based on Vernam’s stream cipher: • Properties: Let the plaintext, ciphertext and key consist of individual bits xi, yi, ki ∈ {0,1}. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl21 Encryption: Decryption: eki (xi) = xi ⊕ ki. dki (yi) = yi ⊕ ki OTP is unconditionally secure if and only if the key ki. is used once!
- 22. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl22 ■ One-Time Pad (OTP) Unconditionally secure cryptosystem: Every equation is a linear equation with two unknowns for every yi are xi = 0 and xi = 1 equiprobable! This is true iff k0, k1, ... are independent, i.e., all ki have to be generated truly random It can be shown that this systems can provably not be solved. Disadvantage: For almost all applications the OTP is impractical since the key must be as long as the message! (Imagine you have to encrypt a 1GByte email attachment.)
- 23. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl23 Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSRs)
- 24. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSRs) • Concatenated flip-flops (FF), i.e., a shift register together with a feedback path • Feedback computes fresh input by XOR of certain state bits • Degree m given by number of storage elements • If pi = 1, the feedback connection is present (“closed switch), otherwise there is not feedback from this flip-flop (“open switch”) • Output sequence repeats periodically • Maximum output length: 2m-1 24
- 25. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSRs): Example with m=3 clk FF2 FF1 FF0=si 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 2 1 0 1 3 1 1 0 4 1 1 1 5 0 1 1 6 0 0 1 7 1 0 0 8 0 1 0 25 • LFSR output described by equations: • Maximum output length (of 23-1=7) achieved only for certain feedback configurations, .e.g., the one shown here.
- 26. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl *See Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography for furtherdetails. ■ Security of LFSRs LFSRs typically described bypolynomials: • Single LFSRs generate highly predictable output • If 2m output bits of an LFSR of degree m are known, the feedback coefficients pi of the LFSR can be found by solving a system of linear equations* • Because of this many stream ciphers use combinations of LFSRs 26
- 27. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl27 Trivium: a modern stream cipher
- 28. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ A Modern Stream Cipher - Trivium • Three nonlinear LFSRs (NLFSR) of length 93, 84, 111 • XOR-Sum of all three NLFSR outputs generates key stream si • Small in Hardware: • Total register count: 288 • Non-linearity: 3 AND-Gates • 7 XOR-Gates (4 with three inputs) 28
- 29. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl ■ Trivium Initialization: • Load 80-bit IV intoA • Load 80-bit key into B • Set c109 , c110 , c111 =1, all other bits 0 Warm-Up: • Clock cipher 4 x 288 = 1152 times without generating output Encryption: • XOR-Sum of all three NLFSR outputs generates key stream si Design can be parallelized to produce up to 64 bits of output per clock cycle Register length Feedback bit Feedforward bit AND inputs A 93 69 66 91, 92 B 84 78 69 82, 83 C 111 87 66 109, 110 29
- 30. Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl30 ■ Lessons Learned • Stream ciphers are less popular than block ciphers in most domains such as Internet security. There are exceptions, for instance, the popular stream cipher RC4. • Stream ciphers sometimes require fewer resources, e.g., code size or chip area, for implementation than block ciphers, and they are attractive for use in constrained environments such as cell phones. • The requirements for a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator are far more demanding than the requirements for pseudorandom number generators used in other applications such as testing or simulation • The One-Time Pad is a provable secure symmetric cipher. However, it is highly impractical for most applications because the key length has to equal the messagelength. • Single LFSRs make poor stream ciphers despite their good statistical properties.However, careful combinations of several LFSR can yield strong ciphers.