Fast Algebraic Attacks and Decomposition of Symmetric Boolean Functions

Algebraic and fast algebraic attacks are power tools to analyze stream ciphers. A class of symmetric Boolean functions with maximum algebraic immunity were found vulnerable to fast algebraic attacks at EUROCRYPT'06. Recently, the notion of AAR (algebraic attack resistant) functions was introduced as a unified measure of protection against both classical algebraic and fast algebraic attacks. In this correspondence, we first give a decomposition of symmetric Boolean functions, then we show that almost all symmetric Boolean functions, including these functions with good algebraic immunity, behave badly against fast algebraic attacks, and we also prove that no symmetric Boolean functions are AAR functions. Besides, we improve the relations between algebraic degree and algebraic immunity of symmetric Boolean functions.Comment: 13 pages, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theor

On 2k2k-Variable Symmetric Boolean Functions with Maximum Algebraic Immunity kk

Algebraic immunity of Boolean function $f$ is defined as the minimal degree of a nonzero $g$ such that $fg=0$ or $(f+1)g=0$. Given a positive even integer $n$, it is found that the weight distribution of any $n$-variable symmetric Boolean function with maximum algebraic immunity $\frac{n}{2}$ is determined by the binary expansion of $n$. Based on the foregoing, all $n$-variable symmetric Boolean functions with maximum algebraic immunity are constructed. The amount is $(2\wt(n)+1)2^{\lfloor \log_2 n \rfloor}

Fast algebraic immunity of Boolean functions and LCD codes

Nowadays, the resistance against algebraic attacks and fast algebraic attacks are considered as an important cryptographic property for Boolean functions used in stream ciphers. Both attacks are very powerful analysis concepts and can be applied to symmetric cryptographic algorithms used in stream ciphers. The notion of algebraic immunity has received wide attention since it is a powerful tool to measure the resistance of a Boolean function to standard algebraic attacks. Nevertheless, an algebraic tool to handle the resistance to fast algebraic attacks is not clearly identified in the literature. In the current paper, we propose a new parameter to measure the resistance of a Boolean function to fast algebraic attack. We also introduce the notion of fast immunity profile and show that it informs both on the resistance to standard and fast algebraic attacks. Further, we evaluate our parameter for two secondary constructions of Boolean functions. Moreover, A coding-theory approach to the characterization of perfect algebraic immune functions is presented. Via this characterization, infinite families of binary linear complementary dual codes (or LCD codes for short) are obtained from perfect algebraic immune functions. The binary LCD codes presented in this paper have applications in armoring implementations against so-called side-channel attacks (SCA) and fault non-invasive attacks, in addition to their applications in communication and data storage systems

The Fourier Spectral Characterization for the Correlation-Immune Functions over Fp

The correlation-immune functions serve as an important metric for measuring resistance of a cryptosystem against correlation attacks. Existing literature emphasize on matrices, orthogonal arrays and Walsh-Hadamard spectra to characterize the correlation-immune functions over $\mathbb{F}_p$ ($p \geq 2$ is a prime). %with prime $p$. Recently, Wang and Gong investigated the Fourier spectral characterization over the complex field for correlation-immune Boolean functions. In this paper, the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of non-binary functions was studied. It was shown that a function $f$ over $\mathbb{F}_p$ is $m$th-order correlation-immune if and only if its Fourier spectrum vanishes at a specific location under any permutation of variables. Moreover, if $f$ is a symmetric function, $f$ is correlation-immune if and only if its Fourier spectrum vanishes at only one location

Properties and constructions of coincident functions

Extensive studies of Boolean functions are carried in many fields. The Mobius transform is often involved for these studies. In particular, it plays a central role in coincident functions, the class of Boolean functions invariant by this transformation. This class -- which has been recently introduced -- has interesting properties, in particular if we want to control both the Hamming weight and the degree. We propose an innovative way to handle the Mobius transform which allows the composition between several Boolean functions and the use of Shannon or Reed-Muller decompositions. Thus we benefit from a better knowledge of coin-cident functions and introduce new properties. We show experimentally that for many features, coincident functions look like any Boolean functions

On the Immunity of Rotation Symmetric Boolean Functions Against Fast Algebraic Attacks

In this paper, it is shown that an $n$-variable rotation symmetric Boolean function $f$ with $n$ even but not a power of 2 admits a rotation symmetric function $g$ of degree at most $e\leq n/3$ such that the product $gf$ has degree at most $n-e-1$

Constructing 2m2m-variable Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity based on polar decomposition of F22m∗\mathbb{F}_{2^{2m}}^*

Constructing $2m$-variable Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity based on decomposition of additive group of the finite field $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2m}}$ seems to be a promising approach since Tu and Deng's work. In this paper, we consider the same problem in a new way. Based on polar decomposition of the multiplicative group of $\mathbb{F}_{2^{2m}}$, we propose a new construction of Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity. By a slight modification of it, we obtain a class of balanced Boolean functions achieving optimal algebraic immunity, which also have optimal algebraic degree and high nonlinearity. Computer investigations imply that this class of functions also behave well against fast algebraic attacks.Comment: 20 page

Design of a New Stream Cipher: PALS

In this paper, a new stream cipher is designed as a clock-controlled one, but with a new mechanism of altering steps based on system theory in such a way that the structures used in it are resistant to conventional attacks. Our proposed algorithm (PALS) uses the main key with the length of 256 bits and a 32-bit message key. The most important criteria considered in designing the PALS are resistance to known attacks, maximum period, high linear complexity, and good statistical properties. As a result, the output keystream is very similar to the perfectly random sequences and resistant to conventional attacks such as correlation attacks, algebraic attack, divide & conquer attack, time-memory tradeoff attack and AIDA/cube attacks. The base structure of the PALS is a clock-controlled combination generator with memory and we obtained all the features according to design criteria with this structure. PALS can be used in many applications, especially in financial cryptography due to its proper security feature

Search Space Reduction of Asynchrony Immune Cellular Automata by Center Permutivity

We continue the study of asynchrony immunity in cellular automata (CA), which can be considered as a weaker version of correlation immunity in the context of vectorial Boolean functions. The property could have applications as a countermeasure for side-channel attacks in CA-based cryptographic primitives, such as S-boxes and pseudorandom number generators. We first give some theoretical results on the necessary conditions that a CA rule must satisfy in order to meet asynchrony immunity, the most important one being center permutivity. Next, we perform an exhaustive search of all asynchrony immune CA rules of neighborhood size up to $5$, leveraging on the discovered theoretical properties to greatly reduce the size of the search space.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, extended version of the paper "Asynchrony Immune Cellular Automata" by L. Mariot presented at ACA 2016. Corrected small typos from previous version and added three bibliographical reference

Symmetric Boolean Function with Maximum Algebraic Immunity on Odd Number of Variables

To resist algebraic attack, a Boolean function should possess good algebraic immunity (AI). Several papers constructed symmetric functions with the maximum algebraic immunity $\lceil \frac{n}{2}\rceil$. In this correspondence we prove that for each odd $n$, there is exactly one trivial balanced $n$-variable symmetric Boolean function achieving the algebraic immunity $\lceil \frac{n}{2}\rceil$. And we also obtain a necessary condition for the algebraic normal form of a symmetric Boolean function with maximum algebraic immunity