### Distinguishing a truncated random permutation from a random function

Shoni Gilboa and Shay Gueron

##### Abstract

An oracle chooses a function f from the set of n bits strings to itself, which is either a randomly chosen permutation or a randomly chosen function. When queried by an n-bit string w, the oracle computes f(w), truncates the m last bits, and returns only the first n-m bits of f(w). How many queries does a querying adversary need to submit in order to distinguish the truncated permutation from a random function? In 1998, Hall et al. showed an algorithm for determining (with high probability) whether or not f is a permutation, using O ( 2^((m+n)/2) ) queries. They also showed that if m < n/7, a smaller number of queries will not suffice. For m > n/7, their method gives a weaker bound. In this manuscript, we show how a modification of the method used by Hall et al. can solve the porblem completely. It extends the result to essentially every m, showing that Omega ( 2^((m+n)/2) ) queries are needed to get a non-negligible distinguishing advantage. We recently became aware that a better bound for the distinguishing advantage, for every m<n, follows from a result of Stam published, in a different context, already in 1978.

Available format(s)
Category
Foundations
Publication info
Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords
Pseudo random permutationspseudo random functionsadvantage
Contact author(s)
shay @ math haifa ac il
History
Short URL
https://ia.cr/2015/773

CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2015/773,
author = {Shoni Gilboa and Shay Gueron},
title = {Distinguishing a truncated random permutation from a random function},
howpublished = {Cryptology ePrint Archive, Paper 2015/773},
year = {2015},
note = {\url{https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/773}},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2015/773}
}

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