The Engima Cipher Machine

There can be little doubt that the German “Enigma” was the best and safest mechanical cipher machine available in any country at the outbreak of the Second World War. Its general use by all three services of the German armed forces presented the Allies with a very serious impediment to their efforts to read the German military message traffic and a great deal of time and effort was expended in attempts to devise a rapid and accurate method of deciphering it. That these efforts were in the end successful, was due in the main to the work of a dedicated team of scientists and academics based at the Bletchley Park facility north of London, England, and the stablishment of the “Ultra” intelligence gathering and distribution operation that worked so well for the Allies throughout the most crucial parts of the conflict. The author’s interest in the Enigma began when working as a volunteer communications specialist at the Canadian War Museum. Two Enigma machines were discovered stored with the radio and other electronic equipment at the Vimy Ridge storage facility. Further investigation of these machines found that one was the three-cipher-cylinder Type “A.” It was even found to be in operating condition, being essentially complete with three of its five cipher cylinders in place. The other machine was a four-cylinder Type “M.” It was in generally good condition, but lacked most of its cipher cylinders. It currently forms part of a Naval display at the Canadian War Museum on Sussex Drive in Ottawa, Ontario

Cryptography: Mathematical Advancements on Cyber Security

The origin of cryptography, the study of encoding and decoding messages, dates back to ancient times around 1900 BC. The ancient Egyptians enlisted the use of basic encryption techniques to conceal personal information. Eventually, the realm of cryptography grew to include the concealment of more important information, and cryptography quickly became the backbone of cyber security. Many companies today use encryption to protect online data, and the government even uses encryption to conceal confidential information. Mathematics played a huge role in advancing the methods of cryptography. By looking at the math behind the most basic methods to the newest methods of cryptography, one can learn how cryptography has advanced and will continue to advance

Phase ordering and shape deformation of two-phase membranes

Within a coupled-field Ginzburg-Landau model we study analytically phase separation and accompanying shape deformation on a two-phase elastic membrane in simple geometries such as cylinders, spheres and tori. Using an exact periodic domain wall solution we solve for the shape and phase ordering field, and estimate the degree of deformation of the membrane. The results are pertinent to a preferential phase separation in regions of differing curvature on a variety of vesicles.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to PR

An enhanced Blowfish Algorithm based on cylindrical coordinate system and dynamic permutation box

The Blowfish Algorithm (BA) is a symmetric block cipher that uses Feistel network to iterate simple encryption and decryption functions. BA key varies from 32 to 448 bits to ensure a high level of security. However, the substitution box (S-Box) in BA occupies a high percentage of memory and has problems in security, specifically in randomness of output with text and image files that have large strings of identical bytes. Thus, the objective of this research is to enhance the BA to overcome these problems. The research involved three phases, algorithm design, implementation, and evaluation. In the design phase, a dynamic 3D S-Box, a dynamic permutation box (P-Box), and a Feistal Function (F-Function) were improved. The improvement involved integrating Cylindrical Coordinate System (CCS) and dynamic P-Box. The enhanced BA is known as Ramlan Ashwak Faudziah (RAF) algorithm. The implementation phase involved performing key expansion, data encryption, and data decryption. The evaluation phase involved measuring the algorithm in terms of memory and security. In terms of memory, the results showed that the RAF occupied 256 bytes, which is less than the BA (4096 bytes). In terms of randomness of text and image files that have large strings of identical bytes, the average rate of randomness for 188 statistical tests obtained values of more than 96%. This means that the RAF has high randomness indicating that it is more secured. Thus, the results showed that the RAF algorithm that integrates the CCS and dynamic P-Box serves as an effective approach that can consume less memory and strengthen security

Best S-box amongst differently sized S-boxes based on the avalanche effect in ‎the advance encryption standard algorithm

Substitution boxes are essential nonlinear modules that are popular in block ‎cipher algorithms. They ‎also play a significant role in the security area because of ‎their robustness to different linear ‎cryptanalysis. Each element of the state in a S-‎box is nonlinearly replaced using a lookup table. This ‎research presents the S-‎box, one of the fundamental parts of the advanced encryption standard ‎‎(AES) ‎algorithm. The S-box represents the confusion part in the AES. However, when ‎information ‎is shared between different devices in an authorized manner, the ‎algorithm should be able to ‎combine a sufficient number of confusion layers to ‎guarantee the avalanche effect (AE). ‎Subsequently, this research selects the best ‎S-box by comparing different sizes (4×4, 8×8, and ‎‎16×16) and measuring them ‎on the basis of the million-bit encryption. The AE is the main criterion ‎used in ‎choosing the best S-box. A robust and strong cryptography algorithm should be ‎able to ‎confirm the AEs. Results indicate that the 16×16 S-box with a 52% AE ‎ratio is the superior S-bo