Symmetric Encryption

or

conventional / private-key / single-key sender and recipient share a common key all classical encryption algorithms are private-key was only type prior to invention of publickey in 1970s and by far most widely used

Some Basic Terminology

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

Symmetric Cipher Model

Requirements
two

requirements for secure use of symmetric encryption:

a strong encryption algorithm a secret key known only to sender / receiver

mathematically

have:

Y = EK(X) X = DK(Y)
assume

encryption algorithm is known implies a secure channel to distribute key

Cryptography
characterize

cryptographic system by:

type of encryption operations used

substitution / transposition / product

number of keys used

single-key or private / two-key or public

way in which plaintext is processed

block / stream

Cryptanalysis
objective

to recover key not just message general approaches:

cryptanalytic attack
Rely on nature of algorithm plus perhaps some knowledge of the general characteristics of the plaintext

brute-force attack
Try every possible key on a piece of ciphertext until an intelligible translation into plaintext is obtained.

Cryptanalytic Attacks
ciphertext

only

only know algorithm & ciphertext, is statistical, know or can identify plaintext

known

plaintext plaintext ciphertext text

know/suspect plaintext & ciphertext select plaintext and obtain ciphertext select ciphertext and obtain plaintext select plaintext or ciphertext to en/decrypt

chosen

chosen

chosen

More Definitions
unconditional

security

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

computational

security

given limited computing resources (eg time needed for calculations is greater than age of universe), the cipher cannot be broken

Brute Force Search

always possible to simply try every key most basic attack, proportional to key size assume either know / recognise plaintext
Key Size (bits) 32 56 128 168 26 characters (permutation) Number of Alternative Keys 232 = 4.3 109 256 = 7.2 1016 2128 = 3.4 1038 2168 = 3.7 1050 26! = 4 1026 Time required at 1 decryption/s 231 s 255 s 2127 s 2167 s = 35.8 minutes = 1142 years = 5.4 1024 years = 5.9 1036 years Time required at 106 decryptions/s 2.15 milliseconds 10.01 hours 5.4 1018 years 5.9 1030 years 6.4 106 years

2 1026 s = 6.4 1012 years

Classical Substitution Ciphers

where

letters of plaintext are replaced by other letters or by numbers or symbols or if plaintext is viewed as a sequence of bits, then substitution involves replacing plaintext bit patterns with ciphertext bit patterns

Caesar Cipher
earliest

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

Caesar Cipher
can

define transformation as: give each letter a number

w

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

mathematically

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v 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

then

have Caesar cipher as:

c = E(p) = (p + k) mod (26) p = D(c) = (c k) mod (26)

Cryptanalysis of Caesar Cipher

only

have 26 possible ciphers

A maps to A,B,..Z

could

simply try each in turn a brute force search given ciphertext, just try all shifts of letters do need to recognize when have plaintext eg. break ciphertext "GCUA VQ DTGCM"

Monoalphabetic Cipher

rather than just shifting the alphabet could shuffle (jumble) the letters arbitrarily each plaintext letter maps to a different random ciphertext letter hence key is 26 letters long
Plain: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Cipher: DKVQFIBJWPESCXHTMYAUOLRGZN

Plaintext: ifwewishtoreplaceletters Ciphertext: WIRFRWAJUHYFTSDVFSFUUFYA

Monoalphabetic Cipher Security

now

have a total of 26! = 4 x 1026 keys with so many keys, might think is secure but would be !!!WRONG!!! problem is language characteristics

Language Redundancy and Cryptanalysis

human languages are redundant eg "th lrd s m shphrd shll nt wnt" letters are not equally commonly used in English E is by far the most common letter

followed by T,R,N,I,O,A,S

other letters like Z,J,K,Q,X are fairly rare have tables of single, double & triple letter frequencies for various languages

English Letter Frequencies

Example Cryptanalysis

given ciphertext:
UZQSOVUOHXMOPVGPOZPEVSGZWSZOPFPESXUDBMETSXAIZ VUEPHZHMDZSHZOWSFPAPPDTSVPQUZWYMXUZUHSX EPYEPOPDZSZUFPOMBZWPFUPZHMDJUDTMOHMQ

count relative letter frequencies (see text) guess P & Z are e and t guess ZW is th and hence ZWP is the 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

Playfair Cipher
not

even the large number of keys in a monoalphabetic cipher provides security one approach to improving security was to encrypt multiple letters the Playfair Cipher is an example invented by Charles Wheatstone in 1854, but named after his friend Baron Playfair

Playfair Key Matrix

a

5X5 matrix of letters based on a keyword fill in letters of keyword (sans duplicates) fill rest of matrix with other letters eg. using the keyword MONARCHY
M C E L U O H F P V N Y G Q W A B I/J S X R D K T Z

Encrypting and Decrypting

plaintext is encrypted two letters at a time

1. 2.

3.

4.

if a pair is a repeated letter, insert filler like 'X if both letters fall in the same row, replace each with letter to right (wrapping back to start from end) if both letters fall in the same column, replace each with the letter below it (again wrapping to top from bottom) otherwise each letter is replaced by the letter in the same row and in the column of the other letter of the pair

Example

Plaintext is encrypted two letters at a time.

if a pair is a repeated letter, insert a filler like 'X', eg. "balloon" encrypts as "ba lx lo on" if both letters fall in the same row, replace each with letter to right (wrapping back to start from end), eg. ar" encrypts as "RM" if both letters fall in the same column, replace each with the letter below it (again wrapping to top from bottom), eg. mu" encrypts to "CM" otherwise each letter is replaced by the one in its row in the column of the other letter of the pair, eg. hs" encrypts to "BP", and ea" to "IM" or "JM" (as desired) Decryption works exactly in reverse. E.g hmclprhmsuulif

Security of Playfair Cipher

security much improved over monoalphabetic since have 26 x 26 = 676 digrams would need a 676 entry frequency table to analyse (verses 26 for a monoalphabetic) and correspondingly more ciphertext was widely used for many years

eg. by US & British military in WW1

it can be broken, given a few hundred letters since still has much of plaintext structure

Polyalphabetic Ciphers

polyalphabetic substitution ciphers improve security using multiple cipher alphabets make cryptanalysis harder with more alphabets to guess and flatter frequency distribution use a key to select which alphabet is used for each letter of the message use each alphabet in turn repeat from start after end of key is reached

Vigenre Cipher
simplest

polyalphabetic substitution cipher effectively multiple caesar ciphers key is multiple letters long K = k1 k2 ... kd use each alphabet in turn repeat from start after d letters in message decryption simply works in reverse

Example of Vigenre Cipher

write the plaintext out write the keyword repeated above it use each key letter as a caesar cipher key encrypt the corresponding plaintext letter eg using keyword deceptive
key: deceptivedeceptivedeceptive plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGRZGVTWAVZHCQYGLMGJ

AB C DEFGH I J KLMNOPQ RSTUVWXYZ

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

Security of Vigenre Ciphers

have

multiple ciphertext letters for each plaintext letter hence letter frequencies are obscured but not totally lost start with letter frequencies

see if look monoalphabetic or not

if

not, then need to determine number of alphabets, since then can attach each

Autokey Cipher

ideally want a key as long as the message Vigenre proposed the autokey cipher with keyword is prefixed to message as key knowing keyword can recover the first few letters use these in turn on the rest of the message but still have frequency characteristics to attack eg. given key deceptive
key: deceptivewearediscoveredsav plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGKZEIIGASXSTSLVVWLA

One-Time Pad

if a truly random key as long as the message is used, the cipher will be secure called a One-Time pad is unbreakable since ciphertext bears no statistical relationship to the plaintext since for any plaintext & any ciphertext there exists a key mapping one to other can only use the key once though problems in generation & safe distribution of key

Transposition Ciphers
now

consider classical transposition or permutation ciphers these hide the message by rearranging the letter order without altering the actual letters used can recognise these since have the same frequency distribution as the original text

Rail Fence cipher

write message letters out diagonally over a number of rows then read off cipher row by row eg. write message out as:
m e m a t r h t g p r y e t e f e t e o a a t

giving ciphertext
MEMATRHTGPRYETEFETEOAAT

Row Transposition Ciphers

a

more complex transposition write letters of message out in rows over a specified number of columns then reorder the columns according to some key before reading off the rows
Key: Plaintext: 4 3 1 2 5 6 7 a t t a c k p o s t p o n e d u n t i l t w o a m x y z Ciphertext: TTNAAPTMTSUOAODWCOIXKNLYPETZ

Product Ciphers

ciphers using substitutions or transpositions are not secure because of language characteristics hence consider using several ciphers in succession to make harder, but:

two substitutions make a more complex substitution two transpositions make more complex transposition but a substitution followed by a transposition makes a new much harder cipher

this is bridge from classical to modern ciphers

Rotor Machines

before modern ciphers, rotor machines were most common complex ciphers in use widely used in WW2 implemented a very complex, varying substitution cipher used a series of cylinders, each giving one substitution, which rotated and changed after each letter was encrypted with 3 cylinders have 263=17576 alphabets

Hagelin Rotor Machine

Steganography
an

alternative to encryption hides existence of message

using only a subset of letters/words in a longer message marked in some way using invisible ink heat or chemical Pin punctures hiding in LSB in graphic image or sound file

has

drawbacks

high overhead to hide relatively few info bits