A Novel Latin Square Image Cipher

In this paper, we introduce a symmetric-key Latin square image cipher (LSIC) for grayscale and color images. Our contributions to the image encryption community include 1) we develop new Latin square image encryption primitives including Latin Square Whitening, Latin Square S-box and Latin Square P-box ; 2) we provide a new way of integrating probabilistic encryption in image encryption by embedding random noise in the least significant image bit-plane; and 3) we construct LSIC with these Latin square image encryption primitives all on one keyed Latin square in a new loom-like substitution-permutation network. Consequently, the proposed LSIC achieve many desired properties of a secure cipher including a large key space, high key sensitivities, uniformly distributed ciphertext, excellent confusion and diffusion properties, semantically secure, and robustness against channel noise. Theoretical analysis show that the LSIC has good resistance to many attack models including brute-force attacks, ciphertext-only attacks, known-plaintext attacks and chosen-plaintext attacks. Experimental analysis under extensive simulation results using the complete USC-SIPI Miscellaneous image dataset demonstrate that LSIC outperforms or reach state of the art suggested by many peer algorithms. All these analysis and results demonstrate that the LSIC is very suitable for digital image encryption. Finally, we open source the LSIC MATLAB code under webpage https://sites.google.com/site/tuftsyuewu/source-code.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figures, and 7 table

On the Reverse Engineering of the Citadel Botnet

Citadel is an advanced information-stealing malware which targets financial information. This malware poses a real threat against the confidentiality and integrity of personal and business data. A joint operation was recently conducted by the FBI and the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit in order to take down Citadel command-and-control servers. The operation caused some disruption in the botnet but has not stopped it completely. Due to the complex structure and advanced anti-reverse engineering techniques, the Citadel malware analysis process is both challenging and time-consuming. This allows cyber criminals to carry on with their attacks while the analysis is still in progress. In this paper, we present the results of the Citadel reverse engineering and provide additional insight into the functionality, inner workings, and open source components of the malware. In order to accelerate the reverse engineering process, we propose a clone-based analysis methodology. Citadel is an offspring of a previously analyzed malware called Zeus; thus, using the former as a reference, we can measure and quantify the similarities and differences of the new variant. Two types of code analysis techniques are provided in the methodology, namely assembly to source code matching and binary clone detection. The methodology can help reduce the number of functions requiring manual analysis. The analysis results prove that the approach is promising in Citadel malware analysis. Furthermore, the same approach is applicable to similar malware analysis scenarios.Comment: 10 pages, 17 figures. This is an updated / edited version of a paper appeared in FPS 201

Marxist and Formless: Uncanny Materialism in Peter Weiss’s The Aesthetics of Resistance

Peter Weiss made no secret of the importance of form for his magnum opus The Aesthetics of Resistance. “Again and again [I’ve made] new attempts at finding a form for the book,” he wrote early on in its conception. This authorial search is, in fact, far more complicated than the long blocks of prose Weiss settled on for the novel. Exemplified in volume 2’s opening confrontation with Théodore Géricault’s painting The Raft of the Medusa, this search within the narrative vacillates between constituting erect forms and leveling them altogether. With the aid of Georges Bataille, the following essay illuminates not only how reading and writing embody these oppositions between form and formless but also how this tension culminates in Weiss’s poetic regeneration of a Marxism uncanny in nature despite what he perceived as dialectical materialism’s bureaucratic exhaustion in the Eastern bloc

Audibility and Interpolation of Head-Above-Torso Orientation in Binaural Technology

Head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) incorporate fundamental cues required for human spatial hearing and are often applied to auralize results obtained from room acoustic simulations. HRTFs are typically available for various directions of sound incidence and a fixed head-above-torso orientation (HATO). If-in interactive auralizations-HRTFs are exchanged according to the head rotations of a listener, the auralization result most often corresponds to a listener turning head and torso simultaneously, while-in reality-listeners usually turn their head independently above a fixed torso. In the present study, we show that accounting for HATO produces clearly audible differences, thereby suggesting the relevance of correct HATO when aiming at perceptually transparent binaural synthesis. Furthermore, we addressed the efficient representation of variable HATO in interactive acoustic simulations using spatial interpolation. Hereby, we evaluated two different approaches: interpolating between HRTFs with identical torso-to-source but different head-to-source orientations (head interpolation) and interpolating between HRTFs with the same head-to-source but different torso-to-source orientations (torso interpolation). Torso interpolation turned out to be more robust against increasing interpolation step width. In this case the median threshold of audibility for the head-above-torso resolution was about 25 degrees, whereas with head interpolation the threshold was about 10 degrees. Additionally, we tested a non-interpolation approach (nearest neighbor) as a suitable means for mobile applications with limited computational capacities

Revisiting Related-Key Boomerang attacks on AES using computer-aided tool

In recent years, several MILP models were introduced to search automatically for boomerang distinguishers and boomerang attacks on block ciphers. However, they can only be used when the key schedule is linear. Here, a new model is introduced to deal with nonlinear key schedules as it is the case for AES. This model is more complex and actually it is too slow for exhaustive search. However, when some hints are added to the solver, it found the current best related-key boomerang attack on AES-192 with $2^{124}$ time, $2^{124}$ data, and $2^{79.8}$ memory complexities, which is better than the one presented by Biryukov and Khovratovich at ASIACRYPT 2009 with complexities $2^{176}/2^{123}/2^{152}$ respectively. This represents a huge improvement for the time and memory complexity, illustrating the power of MILP in cryptanalysis