Abstract | ||
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MAG is a synchronous stream cipher submitted to the E-CRYPT eSTREAM project. The design criterion for the cipher is cellular automata, although it can be modelled as a word-based shift-register with a single word of memory. Cryptanalysis of MAG reveals serious structural weaknesses within the cipher. This paper presents simple distinguishing attacks against MAG with an 80-bit or 128-bit key that can, under certain circumstances, be carried out by hand. The approach is extended to a partial-key recovery attack. For the 80-bit and 128-bit keys, we recover 40 key bits and 32 key bits respectively from about 32 bytes keystream. A proposed modification to MAG, intended to prevent an earlier distinguishing attack, has no effect upon our distinguisher but instead allows a full key recovery attack for both 80-bit and 128-bit keys using around thirty-two bytes of keystream and a practical pre-computation. Therefore the modification actually weakens an already insecure cipher. |
Year | DOI | Venue |
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2006 | 10.1007/11780656_6 | ACISP |
Keywords | DocType | Volume |
cellular automata,stream cipher | Conference | 4058 |
ISSN | ISBN | Citations |
0302-9743 | 3-540-35458-1 | 1 |
PageRank | References | Authors |
0.36 | 1 | 2 |
Name | Order | Citations | PageRank |
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Leonie Ruth Simpson | 1 | 58 | 17.65 |
Matt Henricksen | 2 | 131 | 13.55 |