Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2002/142

On the Applicability of Distinguishing Attacks Against Stream Ciphers

Greg Rose and Philip Hawkes

Abstract: We demonstrate that the existence of distinguishing attacks against stream ciphers is unrelated to their security in practical use, and in particular that the amount of data required to perform a distinguishing attack is unrelated to the key length of the cipher. The implication for the NESSIE Project is that no submitted symmetric cipher would be accepted under the unpublished rules for distinguishing attacks, not even the block ciphers in Counter Mode or Output Feedback Mode.

Category / Keywords: secret-key cryptography / distinguishing attack, stream cipher

Publication Info: Submitted to third NESSIE workshop

Date: received 16 Sep 2002, last revised 17 Sep 2002

Contact author: ggr at qualcomm com

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20020917:081955 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2002/142

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