On the Relationships between Different Methods for Degree Evaluation

In this paper, we compare several non-tight degree evaluation methods i.e., Boura and Canteaut’s formula, Carlet’s formula as well as Liu’s numeric mapping and division property proposed by Todo, and hope to find the best one from these methodsfor practical applications. Specifically, for the substitution-permutation-network (SPN) ciphers, we first deeply explore the relationships between division property of an Sbox and its algebraic properties (e.g., the algebraic degree of its inverse). Based on these findings, we can prove theoretically that division property is never worse than Boura and Canteaut’s and Carlet’s formulas, and we also experimentally verified that the division property can indeed give a better bound than the latter two methods. In addition, for the nonlinear feedback shift registers (NFSR) based ciphers, according to the propagation of division property and the core idea of numeric mapping, we give a strict proof that the estimated degree using division property is never greater than that of numeric mapping. Moreover, our experimental results on Trivium and Kreyvium indicate the division property actually derives a much better bound than the numeric mapping. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time to give a formal discussion on the relationships between division property and other degree evaluation methods, and we present the first theoretical proof and give the experimental verification to illustrate that division property is the optimal one among these methods in terms of the accuracy of the upper bounds on algebraic degree.

COMBINING AND FILTERING FUNCTIONS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF NONLINEAR-FEEDBACK SHIFT REGISTER

Strong cryptography of stream ciphers is determined according to the ability of the generated pseudorandom sequence to resist analytical attacks. One of the main components of the pseudorandom stream cipher sequence generating algorithm is Boolean functions for combining and filtering. The paper considers the possibility of applying nonlinear-feedback shift registers that generate a maximum length sequence as a combining or filtering function. The main indicators of cryptographic strength of such functions as: balance, the prohibitions presence, correlation immunity and nonlinearity are examined in this work. The study analyzes and demonstrates correlation immunity and nonlinearity experimental values for all nonlinear feedback shift registers that generate a maximum length sequence, for register sizes up to 6 cells inclusively, and register sizes up to 9 cells inclusively with algebraic degree of the polynomial under 2. The possibility of optimizing the process of selecting Boolean functions according to the criteria of maximum correlation immunity and nonlinearity with various algebraic degrees and minimization of the number of monomials in the polynomial is studied.

Constructing New NLFSR Functions with Optimal Periods

Pseudorandom bit generators are essential components in many security applications. The security of the system relies on the security of its components. Feedback shift registers are commonly used to generate pseudorandom bits. Nonlinear feedback shift registers (NLFSRs) are known to be more secure than the linear ones. However, there is no mathematical foundation on how to construct NLFSR feedback functions with optimal periods. This article considers a new type of NLFSR capable of constructing feedback functions of degree 3 with optimal periods. Using their construction method, the authors propose new functions of this type.

On Equivalence of Cascade Connections of Two Nonlinear Feedback Shift Registers

Grain is a hardware-oriented finalist in the eSTREAM Stream Cipher Project. As a particular Galois nonlinear feedback shift register (NFSR), cascade connection of two NFSRs has been used as the main building block in the Grain family of stream ciphers. Two NFSRs are said to be equivalent if their sets of output sequences are equal. Finding properties of equivalent cascade connections of two NFSRs is useful to the design of the Grain family of stream ciphers. This paper first gives some properties of feedback functions between equivalent cascade connections of two NFSRs. It then shows that a cascade connection of two NFSRs and its equivalent Galois NFSR have isomorphic state diagrams if they have the same stage number. Finally, the paper reveals that for any given cascade connection of an $m$-stage NFSR1 into an $n$-stage NFSR2, there is only another one equivalent cascade connection of an $m$-stage NFSR3 into an $n$-stage NFSR4; moreover, the feedback functions of NFSR1 and NFSR3 are dual complementary, and the feedback functions of NFSR2 and NFSR4 are complementary. As an application of this property, the paper shows that the existing Grain family of stream ciphers have used the ones with lower cost of hardware implementations between their own two equivalent cascade connections, confirming their good design criteria.

Generation of special form shift registers using a dedicated software platform

This article describes crucial functionalities of a Unified Framework for Nonlinear Feedback Shift Register Generation (UFfNG). The core of UFfNG framework is a unified algorithm for Nonlinear Feedback Shift Registers (NLFSR) enumeration which can be effectively implemented in heterogeneous environments including CPUs, GPUs and FPGAs. For the sake of completeness, implementation and efficiency results for each platform are discussed and presented.