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Flaws in the Initialisation Process of Stream Ciphers

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Computation, Cryptography, and Network Security

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Abstract

The initialisation process is a key component in modern stream cipher design. A well-designed initialisation process should not reveal any information about the secret key, or possess properties that may help to facilitate attacks. This paper analyses the initialisation processes of shift register based stream ciphers and identifies four flaws which lead to compression, state convergence, the existence of slid pairs and possible weak Key-IV combinations. These flaws are illustrated using the A5/1 stream cipher as a case study. We also provide some design recommendations for the intialisation process in stream ciphers, to overcome these and other flaws.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Information Center, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Ali Alhamdan

  2. Institute for Future Environments, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Harry Bartlett, Ed Dawson, Leonie Simpson & Kenneth Koon-Ho Wong

Authors
  1. Ali Alhamdan
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  2. Harry Bartlett
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  3. Ed Dawson
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  4. Leonie Simpson
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  5. Kenneth Koon-Ho Wong
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ed Dawson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Engineering, Hellenic Military Academy, Vari Attikis, Greece

    Nicholas J. Daras

  2. Department of Mathematics, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Michael Th. Rassias

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Alhamdan, A., Bartlett, H., Dawson, E., Simpson, L., Wong, K.KH. (2015). Flaws in the Initialisation Process of Stream Ciphers. In: Daras, N., Rassias, M. (eds) Computation, Cryptography, and Network Security. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18275-9_2

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