Survey and Benchmark of Block Ciphers for Wireless Sensor Networks

Cryptographic algorithms play an important role in the security architecture of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Choosing the most storage- and energy-efficient block cipher is essential, due to the facts that these networks are meant to operate without human intervention for a long period of time with little energy supply, and that available storage is scarce on these sensor nodes. However, to our knowledge, no systematic work has been done in this area so far.We construct an evaluation framework in which we first identify the candidates of block ciphers suitable for WSNs, based on existing literature and authoritative recommendations. For evaluating and assessing these candidates, we not only consider the security properties but also the storage- and energy-efficiency of the candidates. Finally, based on the evaluation results, we select the most suitable ciphers for WSNs, namely Skipjack, MISTY1, and Rijndael, depending on the combination of available memory and required security (energy efficiency being implicit). In terms of operation mode, we recommend Output Feedback Mode for pairwise links but Cipher Block Chaining for group communications

On differential uniformity of maps that may hide an algebraic trapdoor

We investigate some differential properties for permutations in the affine group, of a vector space V over the binary field, with respect to a new group operation $\circ$, inducing an alternative vector space structure on $V$ .Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1411.768

Algorithm 959: VBF: A Library of C plus plus Classes for Vector Boolean Functions in Cryptography

VBF is a collection of C++ classes designed for analyzing vector Boolean functions (functions that map a Boolean vector to another Boolean vector) from a cryptographic perspective. This implementation uses the NTL library from Victor Shoup, adding new modules that call NTL functions and complement the existing ones, making it better suited to cryptography. The class representing a vector Boolean function can be initialized by several alternative types of data structures such as Truth Table, Trace Representation, and Algebraic Normal Form (ANF), among others. The most relevant cryptographic criteria for both block and stream ciphers as well as for hash functions can be evaluated with VBF: it obtains the nonlinearity, linearity distance, algebraic degree, linear structures, and frequency distribution of the absolute values of the Walsh Spectrum or the Autocorrelation Spectrum, among others. In addition, operations such as equality testing, composition, inversion, sum, direct sum, bricklayering (parallel application of vector Boolean functions as employed in Rijndael cipher), and adding coordinate functions of two vector Boolean functions are presented. Finally, three real applications of the library are described: the first one analyzes the KASUMI block cipher, the second one analyzes the Mini-AES cipher, and the third one finds Boolean functions with very high nonlinearity, a key property for robustness against linear attacks

Conformal Structures Associated to Generic Rank 2 Distributions on 5-Manifolds - Characterization and Killing-Field Decomposition

Given a maximally non-integrable 2-distribution ${\mathcal D}$ on a 5-manifold $M$, it was discovered by P. Nurowski that one can naturally associate a conformal structure $[g]_{\mathcal D}$ of signature (2,3) on $M$. We show that those conformal structures $[g]_{\mathcal D}$ which come about by this construction are characterized by the existence of a normal conformal Killing 2-form which is locally decomposable and satisfies a genericity condition. We further show that every conformal Killing field of $[g]_{\mathcal D}$ can be decomposed into a symmetry of ${\mathcal D}$ and an almost Einstein scale of $[g]_{\mathcal D}$.Comment: Misprints in Theorem B are correcte