Abstract
In stream cipher design pseudo random generators have been proposed which combine the output of one or several LFSRs in order to produce the key stream. For memoryless combiners it is known that the produced sequence has correlation to sums of certain LFSR-sequences whose correlation coefficients c i satisfy the equation Σi c i 2 = 1. It is proved that a corresponding result also holds for combiners with memory.
If correlation probabilities are conditioned on side information, e.g. on known output digits, it is shown that new or stronger correlations may occur. This is exemplified for the summation cipher with two LFSRs where such correlations can be exploited in a known plaintext attack. A cryptanalytic algorithm is given which is shown to be successful for LFSRs of considerable length and with arbitrary feedback connection.
Full paper to appear in the Journal of Cryptology.
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© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Meier, W., Staffelbach, O. (1991). Correlation Properties of Combiners with Memory in Stream Ciphers (Extended Abstract). In: Damgård, I.B. (eds) Advances in Cryptology — EUROCRYPT ’90. EUROCRYPT 1990. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 473. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46877-3_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46877-3_18
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