Understanding Cryptography – A Textbook for

Students and Practitioners

by Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl

[Link]

Chapter 2 – Stream Ciphers

ver. October 29, 2009

These slides were prepared by Thomas Eisenbarth, Christof Paar and Jan Pelzl
Modified by Sam Bowne
 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

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 Intro to Stream Ciphers

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 ■ 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

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■ Stream Cipher

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■ Block Cipher

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■ 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

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 ■ Encryption and Decryption with Stream Ciphers
Plaintext xi, ciphertext yi and key stream si consist of individual bits

• Encryption and decryption are simple additions modulo 2 (aka XOR)

• Encryption and decryption are the same functions

• Encryption: yi = esi(xi ) = xi + si mod 2 xi , yi , si ∈ {0,1}

• Decryption: xi = esi(yi ) = yi + si mod 2

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■ 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)

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 ■ 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 for ciphertext

• 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

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 ■ 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

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 Random Number Generators (RNGs)

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 ■ Random number generators (RNGs)

RNG

True RNG Cryptographically

Pseudorandom NG Secure RNG

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 ■ 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 by post-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

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 ■ 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 ANSI C:

Most PRNGs have bad cryptographic properties!

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 ■ 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

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 ■ 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.

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 One-Time Pad (OTP)

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 ■ 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}.

Encryption: eki(xi) = xi ⊕ ki.

Decryption: dki(yi) = yi ⊕ ki

OTP is unconditionally secure if and only if the key ki. is used once!

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 ■ 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.)

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 Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSRs)

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 ■ 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
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 ■ Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSRs): Example with m=3

clk FF2 FF1 FF0=si

0 1 0 0
• LFSR output described by 1 0 1 0
equations: 2 1 0 1
3 1 1 0
4 1 1 1
5 0 1 1
• Maximum output length (of 23-1=7) achieved only for certain 6 0 0 1
feedback configurations, .e.g., the one shown here. 7 1 0 0
8 0 1 0

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 ■ Security of LFSRs
LFSRs typically described by polynomials:

• 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

*See Chapter 2 of Understanding Cryptography for further details.

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 Trivium: a modern stream cipher

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 ■ 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)
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 ■ Trivium

Initialization:
• Load 80-bit IV into A
• 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

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 ■ 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 message length.

• Single LFSRs make poor stream ciphers despite their good statistical properties. However,
careful combinations of several LFSR can yield strong ciphers.

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