Paper 2026/2707

Poly Versus Polyval

Abstract

We revisit the basic construction of polynomial evaluation based hash function, which we call Poly, over binary extension fields $GF(2^n)$, where $n=64k$ and $k\geq 2$. Unlike GHASH, the NIST standard polynomial evaluation based hash function for $n=128$, Poly does not perform the unnecessary bit reversals of each $n$-bit block, and consequently is faster than GHASH. Further, Poly differs from Polyval, -- a faster alternative to GHASH, -- in that Poly performs usual reduction, while Polyval performs Montgomery reduction. We identify suitable choices of the field representing irreducible polynomials which make usual and Montgomery reductions efficient. We provide detailed algorithms, and associated proofs of correctness for both kinds of reductions. Based on the algorithms, we report carefully optimised assembly implementation of both Poly and Polyval for $n=128,256$ and $512$. Our theoretical analysis and experimental timing results show that for $n=128$, Polyval is faster than Poly, while for $n=256$ and $512$ (as well as for higher values of $n$), Poly is faster than Polyval. The cases $n=128$ and $n=256$ are of current relevance due to the ongoing NIST process for developing cryptographic accordions.