Paper 2006/042

Application of LFSRs for Parallel Sequence Generation in Cryptologic Algorithms

Sourav Mukhopadhyay and Palash Sarkar

Abstract

We consider the problem of efficiently generating sequences in hardware for use in certain cryptographic algorithms. The conventional method of doing this is to use a counter. We show that sequences generated by linear feedback shift registers (LFSRs) can be tailored to suit the appropriate algorithms. For hardware implementation, this reduces both time and chip area. As a result, we are able to suggest improvements to the design of DES Cracker built by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 1998; provide an efficient strategy for generating start points in time-memory trade/off attacks; and present an improved parallel hardware implementation of a variant of the counter mode of operation of a block cipher.

Note: Earlier work on use of LFSRs for exhaustive key search was kindly pointed out to us by David Wagner. The "Related Works" portion of the current paper discusses this point.

Metadata
Available format(s)
PDF
Category
Secret-key cryptography
Publication info
Published elsewhere. Unknown where it was published
Keywords
DES CrackerTMTOCounter Mode of OperationLFSR
Contact author(s)
palash @ isical ac in
History
2006-02-28: revised
2006-02-06: received
See all versions
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2006/042
License
Creative Commons Attribution
CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2006/042,
      author = {Sourav Mukhopadhyay and Palash Sarkar},
      title = {Application of LFSRs for Parallel Sequence Generation in Cryptologic Algorithms},
      howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2006/042},
      year = {2006},
      note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2006/042}},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2006/042}
}
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