Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year

Faculty of Engineering Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption

Computer Engineering Dep. Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

Stream Cipher
Stream ciphers operate on a single bit or byte at a time and implement some form of feedback
mechanism so that the key is constantly changing.
 In stream cipher, a key is input to a pseudorandom bit/number generator that produces a stream
of n-bit numbers that are apparently random.
 The output of the generator, called a keystream, is combined one byte at a time with the plaintext
stream using the bitwise exclusive-OR (XOR) operation.
 The general formula of the stream cipher:
Ci = Ek(Pi) = Pi ⊕ Ki for encryption
Pi = Dk(Ci) = Ci ⊕ Ki for decryption
 A stream cipher generates successive elements of the keystream based on an internal state. This
state is updated in essentially two ways: if the state changes independently of the plaintext or
ciphertext messages, the cipher is classified as a synchronous stream cipher. By contrast, self-
synchronising (asynchronous) stream ciphers update their state based on previous ciphertext
digits.

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Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year
Faculty of Engineering Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption
Computer Engineering Dep. Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

Stream Cipher
 The following important design considerations for a stream cipher:
(1) The encryption sequence should have a large period. The longer the period of repeat the more
difficult it will be to do cryptanalysis. A pseudorandom number generator uses a function that
produces a deterministic stream of bits that eventually repeat. The longer the period of repeat, the
more difficult it will be to do cryptanalysis.
(2) The keystream should approximate the properties of a true random number stream. For example,
there should be an approximately equal number of 1s and 0s.
(3) the output of the pseudorandom number generator is conditioned on the value of the input key. To
guard against brute-force attacks, the key needs to be sufficiently long.

Stream Cipher Usage:

Stream ciphers are often used for their speed and simplicity of implementation in hardware, and in
applications where plaintext comes in quantities of unknowable length like a
secure wireless connection. Another advantage of stream ciphers in military cryptography is that the
cipher stream can be generated in a separate box that is subject to strict security measures

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Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year
Faculty of Engineering Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption
Computer Engineering Dep. Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

One Time Pad

Similar to stream cipher, one-time pad uses a keystream of completely random digits. This scheme
uses a random key that is as long as the message, so that the key need not be repeated. In addition,
the key is to be used to encrypt and decrypt a single message, and then is discarded. Each new
message requires a new key of the same length as the new message. Such a scheme is unbreakable.
It produces random output that bears no statistical relationship to the plaintext.
Example: Decrypt the following ciphertext using one-time key and Vigenère scheme with 27
characters in which the twenty-seventh character is the space character,
ciphertext: ANKYODKYUREPFJBYOJDSPLREYIUNOFDOIUERFPLUYTS
key: pxlmvmsydofuyrvzwc tnlebnecvgdupahfzzlmnyih
plaintext: mr mustard with the candlestick in the hall
In theory, we need look no further for a cipher. The one-time pad offers complete security (perfect
secrecy) but, in practice, has two fundamental difficulties:
1. There is the practical problem of making large quantities of random keys.
2. There is a problem of key distribution and protection. For every message to be sent, a key of equal
length is needed by both sender and receiver.
Because of these difficulties, the one-time pad is of limited utility and is useful primarily for low-
bandwidth channels requiring very high security.
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Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year
Faculty of Engineering Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption
Computer Engineering Dep. Linear Feedback Shift Register Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

Stream Cipher
Pseudorandom number generator (PRNG):
It is an algorithm that generates apparently random sequences using (1) an initial seed value and (2)
feedback mechanism.

Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR):

It is a shift register whose input bit is a linear function (e.g. XOR) of some bits of the overall shift
register value. The initial value of the LFSR is called the seed. The register has a finite number of
possible states (i.e. period). For n-bit LFSR, its maximum period is 2n-1.
Note that, not all LFSRs can produce a maximum number of states. This depends on (1) the initial
value of the LFSR and (2) the taps connections.

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Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year
Faculty of Engineering Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption
Computer Engineering Dep. Linear Feedback Shift Register Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

Stream Cipher
LFSR Example:
let’s look at a 5-bit LFSR with the tap coefficients of the register given by 00101. In order to guarantee
that this shift register has a maximum period. For a register with five internal bits within it, bits that
can never all be equal to zero, the maximum length is 25-1 or 31. Hence, this register has an output
sequence of 31 pseudorandom bits.
Solution: X5 X4 X3 X2 X1
If the initial state of this LFSR is 00001, the
following sequences will be produced.

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Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year
Faculty of Engineering RC4 Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption
Computer Engineering Dep. Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

Stream Cipher
The RC4 Stream Cipher:
RC4 is a stream cipher designed in 1987 by Ron Rivest. It is a variable key-size stream cipher with
byte-oriented operations. The algorithm is based on the use of a random permutation.
 The period of the cipher is likely to be greater than 10100 .
 The cipher can be expected to run very quickly in software.
 RC4 is used in WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and WPA (WiFi Protected Access ), which are
encryption protocols commonly used on wireless routers. RC4 was originally very widely used
due to its simplicity and speed.
 The main issue in this type of cipher is not with RC4 itself but the way in which keys are
generated for use as input to RC4. Over time this code was shown to produce biased outputs
towards certain sequences, mostly in first few bytes of the keystream generated.

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Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year
Faculty of Engineering RC4 Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption
Computer Engineering Dep. Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

RC4 Procedure
The RC4 algorithm:
A variable-length key from 1 to 256 bytes (8 to 2048 bits) is used to initialize a 256-byte state vector
S, with elements S[0], S[1],..., S[255]. For encryption and decryption, a byte K is generated from S
by selecting one of the 255 entries in a systematic fashion. As each a new generated value of K, the
entries in S are once again permuted.

Step 1: Initialization of S
To begin, (a) the entries of S are set equal to
the values from 0 through 255 in ascending
order; that is; S[0] = 0, S[1] = 1,...,S[255] = 255.
(b) A temporary vector, T, is also created.
If the length of the key K is 256 bytes,
then K is transferred to T. Otherwise, for
a key of length keylen bytes,
the first keylen elements of T are copied from K
and then K is repeated as many times as necessary to fill out T.
T K(0) K(1) …. K(keylen) S 0 1 ….. 255

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Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year
Faculty of Engineering RC4 Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption
Computer Engineering Dep. Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

RC4 Algorithm
The preliminary operations can be summarized as follows:
for i = 0 to 255 do
S[i] = i;
T[i] = K[i mod keylen];

Step 2: Initial Permutation of S

Next we use T to produce the initial permutation of S. This involves starting with S[0] and going
through to S[255], and, for each S[i], swapping S[i] with another byte in S according to a scheme
dictated by T[i]:
j = 0;
for i = 0 to 255 do
j = (j + S[i] + T[i]) mod 256;
Swap (S[i], S[j]);

Because the only operation on S is a swap, the only effect is a permutation. S still contains all the
numbers from 0 through 255.

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Mustansiriyah University Symmetric Cryptography Class: Third Year
Faculty of Engineering RC4 Stream Cipher Course name: Data Encryption
Computer Engineering Dep. Lecturer: Fatimah Al-Ubaidy

RC4 Algorithm
Step3: Stream Generation
Once the S vector is initialized, the input key is no longer used. Stream generation involves cycling
through all the elements of S[i], and, for each S[i], swapping S[i] with another byte in S according to
a scheme dictated by the current configuration of S. After S[255] is reached, the process continues,
starting over again at S[0]:
i, j = 0;
while (true)
i = (i + 1) mod 256;
j = (j + S[i]) mod 256;
Swap (S[i], S[j]);
t = (S[i] + S[j]) mod 256;
K = S[t];

Step 4: Encryption
To encrypt, XOR the value Ki with the next byte of plaintext (Pi). To decrypt, XOR the value Ki with
the next byte of ciphertext (Ci).
Ci = Pi ⊕ Ki