Introduction to Cryptography

Classical Encryption
Techniques

u "I am fairly familiar with all the forms of secret

writings, and am myself the author of a
trifling monograph upon the subject, in
which I analyze one hundred and sixty
separate ciphers," said Holmes..
—The Adventure of the Dancing Men, Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle
Symmetric Encryption

u or conventional / private-key / single-key

u sender and recipient share a common key
u all classical encryption algorithms are private-key
u was only type prior to invention of public-key in 1970’s
u and by far most widely used
 Some Basic Terminology

u plaintext - original message

u ciphertext - coded message
u cipher - algorithm for transforming plaintext to ciphertext
u key - info used in cipher known only to sender/receiver
u encipher (encrypt) - converting plaintext to ciphertext
u decipher (decrypt) - recovering plaintext from ciphertext
u cryptography - study of encryption principles/methods
u cryptanalysis (codebreaking) - study of principles/ methods of
deciphering ciphertext without knowing key
u cryptology - field of both cryptography and cryptanalysis
Symmetric Cipher Model
Requirements

u two requirements for secure use of symmetric encryption:

u a strong encryption algorithm
u a secret key known only to sender / receiver
u mathematically have:
Y = E(K, X)
X = D(K, Y)
u assume encryption algorithm is known
u implies a secure channel to distribute key
Cryptography

u can characterize cryptographic system by:

u type of encryption operations used
u substitution
u transposition
u product
u number of keys used
u single-key or private
u two-key or public
u way in which plaintext is processed
u block
u stream
Cryptanalysis

u objective to recover key not just message

u general approaches:
u cryptanalytic attack
u brute-force attack
u if either succeed all key use compromised
Cryptanalytic Attacks

Ø ciphertext only
l only know algorithm & ciphertext, is statistical, know or can
identify plaintext
Ø known plaintext
l know/suspect plaintext & ciphertext
Ø chosen plaintext
l select plaintext and obtain ciphertext
Ø chosen ciphertext
l select ciphertext and obtain plaintext
Ø chosen text
l select plaintext or ciphertext to en/decrypt
More Definitions

Ø unconditional security
l no matter how much computer power or time is
available, the cipher cannot be broken since the
ciphertext provides insufficient information to
uniquely determine the corresponding plaintext
Ø computational security
l given limited computing resources (eg time
needed for calculations is greater than age of
universe), the cipher cannot be broken
Brute Force Search

u always possible to simply try every key

u most basic attack, proportional to key size
u assume either know / recognise plaintext
Key Size (bits) Number of Alternative Time required at 1 Time required at 106
Keys decryption/µs decryptions/µs
32 232 = 4.3 ´ 109 231 µs = 35.8 minutes 2.15 milliseconds
56 256 = 7.2 ´ 1016 255 µs = 1142 years 10.01 hours
128 2128 = 3.4 ´ 1038 2127 µs = 5.4 ´ 1024 years 5.4 ´ 1018 years

168 2168 = 3.7 ´ 1050 2167 µs = 5.9 ´ 1036 years 5.9 ´ 1030 years

26 characters 26! = 4 ´ 1026 2 ´ 1026 µs = 6.4 ´ 1012 years 6.4 ´ 106 years
(permutation)
Classical Substitution Ciphers

u where letters of plaintext are replaced by other letters

or by numbers or symbols
u or if plaintext is viewed as a sequence of bits, then
substitution involves replacing plaintext bit patterns with
ciphertext bit patterns
Caesar Cipher

u earliest known substitution cipher

u by Julius Caesar
u first attested use in military affairs
u replaces each letter by 3rd letter on
u example:
meet me after the toga party
PHHW PH DIWHU WKH WRJD SDUWB
Caesar Cipher

u can define transformation as:

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C
u mathematically give each letter a number
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

u then have Caesar cipher as:

c = E(k, p) = (p + k) mod (26)
p = D(k, c) = (c – k) mod (26)
Cryptanalysis of Caesar Cipher

Ø only have 26 possible ciphers

l A maps to A,B,..Z
Ø could simply try each in turn
Ø a brute force search
Ø given ciphertext, just try all shifts of letters
Ø do need to recognize when have plaintext
Ø eg. break ciphertext "GCUA VQ DTGCM"
Monoalphabetic Cipher

u rather than just shifting the alphabet

u could shuffle (jumble) the letters arbitrarily
u each plaintext letter maps to a different random ciphertext letter
u hence key is 26 letters long

Plain: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Cipher: DKVQFIBJWPESCXHTMYAUOLRGZN

Plaintext: ifwewishtoreplaceletters
Ciphertext: WIRFRWAJUHYFTSDVFSFUUFYA
Monoalphabetic Cipher Security

u now we have a total of 26! = 4 x 1026 keys

u with so many keys, might think is secure
u but would be !!!WRONG!!!
u problem is language characteristics
Language Redundancy and
Cryptanalysis

Ø human languages are redundant

Ø eg "th lrd s m shphrd shll nt wnt"
Ø letters are not equally commonly used
Ø in English E is by far the most common letter
l followed by T,R,N,I,O,A,S
Ø other letters like Z,J,K,Q,X are fairly rare
Ø have tables of single, double & triple letter frequencies
for various languages
English Letter Frequencies
Use in Cryptanalysis

u key concept - monoalphabetic substitution ciphers do not

change relative letter frequencies
u discovered by Arabian scientists in 9th century
u calculate letter frequencies for ciphertext
u compare counts/plots against known values
u if caesar cipher look for common peaks/troughs
u peaks at: A-E-I triple, NO pair, RST triple
u troughs at: JK, X-Z
u for monoalphabetic must identify each letter
u tables of common double/triple letters help
Example Cryptanalysis

u given ciphertext:
UZQSOVUOHXMOPVGPOZPEVSGZWSZOPFPESXUDBMETSXAIZ
VUEPHZHMDZSHZOWSFPAPPDTSVPQUZWYMXUZUHSX
EPYEPOPDZSZUFPOMBZWPFUPZHMDJUDTMOHMQ
u count relative letter frequencies (see text)
u guess P & Z are e and t
u guess ZW is th and hence ZWP is the
u proceeding with trial and error finally get:
it was disclosed yesterday that several informal but
direct contacts have been made with political
representatives of the viet cong in moscow
Steganography

u an alternative to encryption
u hides existence of message
u using only a subset of letters/words in a longer
message marked in some way
u using invisible ink
u hiding in LSB in graphic image or sound file
u has drawbacks
u high overhead to hide relatively few info bits
u advantage is can obscure encryption use
Block vs Stream Ciphers

u block ciphers process messages in blocks, each of

which is then en/decrypted
u like a substitution on very big characters
u 64-bits or more
u stream ciphers process messages a bit or byte at a
time when en/decrypting
u many current ciphers are block ciphers
u better analysed
u broader range of applications
Block vs Stream Ciphers
Block Cipher Principles

u most symmetric block ciphers are based on a

Feistel Cipher Structure
u needed since must be able to decrypt ciphertext
to recover messages efficiently
u block ciphers look like an extremely large
substitution
u would need table of 264 entries for a 64-bit block
u instead create from smaller building blocks
u using idea of a product cipher
Ideal Block Cipher
 Claude Shannon and Substitution-
Permutation Ciphers

Ø Claude Shannon introduced idea of substitution-

permutation (S-P) networks in 1949 paper
Ø form basis of modern block ciphers
Ø S-P nets are based on the two primitive
cryptographic operations seen before:
l substitution (S-box)
l permutation (P-box)
Ø provide confusion & diffusion of message & key
Confusion and Diffusion

u cipher needs to completely obscure statistical

properties of original message
u a one-time pad does this
u more practically Shannon suggested combining S & P
elements to obtain:
u diffusion – dissipates statistical structure of plaintext over
bulk of ciphertext
u confusion – makes relationship between ciphertext and
key as complex as possible
Feistel Cipher Structure

u Horst Feistel devised the feistel cipher

u based on concept of invertible product cipher
u partitions input block into two halves
u process through multiple rounds which perform
a substitution on left data half
u based on round function of right half & subkey
u then have permutation swapping halves
u implements Shannon’s S-P net concept
Feistel Cipher Structure
 Feistel Cipher Design Elements

Ø block size
Ø key size
Ø number of rounds
Ø subkey generation algorithm
Ø round function
Ø fast software en/decryption
Ø ease of analysis
Data Encryption Standard (DES)

u most widely used block cipher in world

u adopted in 1977 by NBS (now NIST)
u as FIPS PUB 46
u encrypts 64-bit data using 56-bit key
u has widespread use
u has been considerable controversy over its security
DES History

u IBM developed Lucifer cipher

u by team led by Feistel in late 60’s
u used 64-bit data blocks with 128-bit key
u then redeveloped as a commercial cipher with input
from NSA and others
u in 1973 NBS issued request for proposals for a national
cipher standard
u IBM submitted their revised Lucifer which was eventually
accepted as the DES
DES Design Controversy
u although DES standard is public
u was considerable controversy over design
u in choice of 56-bit key (vs Lucifer 128-bit)
u and because design criteria were classified
u subsequent events and public analysis show in fact
design was appropriate
u use of DES has flourished
u especially in financial applications
u still standardised for legacy application use
DES Encryption Overview
Initial Permutation IP

Ø first step of the data computation

Ø IP reorders the input data bits
Ø even bits to LH half, odd bits to RH half
Ø quite regular in structure (easy in h/w)
Ø example:

IP(675a6967 5e5a6b5a) = (ffb2194d 004df6fb)

DES Round Structure

u uses two 32-bit L & R halves

u as for any Feistel cipher can describe as:
Li = Ri–1
Ri = Li–1 Å F(Ri–1, Ki)
u F takes 32-bit R half and 48-bit subkey:
u expands R to 48-bits using perm E
u adds to subkey using XOR
u passes through 8 S-boxes to get 32-bit result
u finally permutes using 32-bit perm P
DES Round Structure
Substitution Boxes S

Ø have eight S-boxes which map 6 to 4 bits

Ø each S-box is actually 4 little 4 bit boxes
l outer bits 1 & 6 (row bits) select one row of 4
l inner bits 2-5 (col bits) are substituted
l result is 8 lots of 4 bits, or 32 bits
Ø row selection depends on both data & key
l feature known as autoclaving (autokeying)
Ø example:
l S(18 09 12 3d 11 17 38 39) = 5fd25e03
DES Key Schedule

Ø forms subkeys used in each round

l initial permutation of the key (PC1) which selects 56-
bits in two 28-bit halves
l 16 stages consisting of:
u rotating each half separately either 1 or 2 places
depending on the key rotation schedule K
u selecting 24-bits from each half & permuting them
by PC2 for use in round function F
Ø note practical use issues in h/w vs s/w
DES Decryption
u decrypt must unwind steps of data computation
u with Feistel design, do encryption steps again using subkeys
in reverse order (SK16 … SK1)
u IP undoes final FP step of encryption
u 1st round with SK16 undoes 16th encrypt round
u ….
u 16th round with SK1 undoes 1st encrypt round
u then final FP undoes initial encryption IP
u thus recovering original data value
Avalanche Effect

u key desirable property of encryption alg

u where a change of one input or key bit results in
changing approx half output bits
u making attempts to “home-in” by guessing keys
impossible
u DES exhibits strong avalanche
Strength of DES – Key Size

u 56-bit keys have 256 = 7.2 x 1016 values

u brute force search looks hard
u recent advances have shown is possible
u in 1997 on Internet in a few months
u in 1998 on dedicated h/w (EFF) in a few days
u in 1999 above combined in 22hrs!
u still must be able to recognize plaintext
u must now consider alternatives to DES
Strength of DES – Analytic Attacks

Ø now have several analytic attacks on DES

Ø these utilise some deep structure of the cipher
l by gathering information about encryptions
l can eventually recover some/all of the sub-key bits
l if necessary then exhaustively search for the rest
Ø generally these are statistical attacks
l differential cryptanalysis
l linear cryptanalysis
l related key attacks