NAME: Kizito Nyuytiymbiy Andrew ID: knyuytiy Paper Review_#: 6

Paper: A comprehensive survey of modern symmetric

cryptographic solutions for resource constrained environments
Synopsis/Introduction
Cryptographic algorithms affect the lifespan and performance of devices in resource constraint
environments (RCEs). Some resource constraint environments include wireless sensor networks
(WSNs), radio frequency identification (RFID), wireless identification and sensing platforms
(WISP) and Internet of Things. Symmetric cryptographic schemes are very suitable for such
environment, performance and economic wise. In designing a solution for resource constrained
environments, minimizing usage of limited resources is very important. Some of the pertinent
constraints include energy constraints, memory limitations, high latency in communication,
unattended operation of networks and bandwidth.

Problem Statement
The study aims to perform a comprehensive survey of modern symmetric cryptographic
solutions used in RCEs. The objective is to provide a survey of the ciphers that were used in the
past, those that are currently used, and their respective specifications and applications in modern
world RCEs in order to help understanding of the requirements of RCEs and help research in
cryptographic implementation for RCEs.

Impact
 The paper provides a solid understanding for research in the cryptographic
implementation of RCEs. This has the impact of speeding up research and guaranteeing
solutions based on the right requirements that the authors explain explicitly.
 The inclusion of modern block ciphers, involution ciphers, lightweight block ciphers and
stream ciphers gives a quick overview of security schemes used in RCEs.

Strengths
 The authors did a study of what other researches have done, identified things that most
surveys generally missed or the relationships that were not considered like “the
relationship between the cipher cost and the intended application's resource
requirements”. The paper maintains balance between security cost and performance.
 The paper addresses all four constraints (energy, memory, high latency and bandwidth
and unattended operation) that affect any RCE anywhere in the world with focus on cost
effective security and cryptography for these networks. This is very commendable
because securing data from these networks involves parameters that most networks don’t
even need to think about.

Date: 10/10/2018
NAME: Kizito Nyuytiymbiy Andrew ID: knyuytiy Paper Review_#: 6

 It is clear from the wealth of content provided in this paper (and the citations) that the
author did a very extensive review of other literature. This aligns with their objective to
provide a research aid for the implementation of security of RCEs. The extend to which
the paper can help other researchers is very profound given the completeness of the
study.

Weaknesses
 Despite the many strengths of this study, the authors failed to consider the real-time
reporting needs of some WSNs and the computational/processing limitation that they
have. WSN reporting usually near real time and the addition of even light weight
cryptography will increase the latency. The research can thus be improved by performing
analysis on the implications of security for real time strict WSNs especially in warning
systems.

References

[1] J. H. Kong, L.-M. Ang and K. P. Seng, "A comprehensive survey of modern symmetric
cryptographic solutions for resource constrained environments," 2014.

Date: 10/10/2018