Stream cipher analysis based on FCSRs

Cryptosystems are used to provide security in communications and data transmissions. Stream ciphers are private key systems that are often used to transform large volumn data. In order to have security, key streams used in stream ciphers must be fully analyzed so that they do not contain specific patterns, statistical information and structures with which attackers are able to quickly recover the entire key streams and then break down the systems.;Based on different schemes to generate sequences and different ways to represent them, there are a variety of stream cipher analyses. The most important one is the linear analysis based on linear feedback shift registers (LFSRs) which have been extensively studied since the 1960's. Every sequence over a finite field has a well defined linear complexity. If a sequence has small linear complexity, it can be efficiently recovered by Berlekamp-Messay algorithm. Therefore, key streams must have large linear complexities. A lot of work have been done to generate and analyze sequences that have large linear complexities. In the early 1990's, Klapper and Goresky discovered feedback with carry shift registers over Z/(p) (p-FCSRS), p is prime. Based on p-FCSRs, they developed a stream cipher analysis that has similar properties to linear analysis. For instance, every sequence over Z/(p) has a well defined p-adic complexity and key streams of small p-adic complexity are not secure for use in stream ciphers.;This disstation focuses on stream cipher analysis based on feedback with carry shift registers. The first objective is to develop a stream cipher analysis based on feedback with carry shift registers over Z/( N) (N-FCSRs), N is any integer greater than 1, not necessary prime. The core of the analysis is a new rational approximation algorithm that can be used to efficiently compute rational representations of eventually periodic N-adic sequences. This algorithm is different from that used in p-adic sequence analysis which was given by Klapper and Goresky. Their algorithm is a modification of De Weger's rational approximation algorithm.;The second objective is to generalize feedback with carry shift register architecture to more general algebraic settings which are called algebraic feedback shift registers (AFSRs). By using algebraic operations and structures on certain rings, we are able to not only construct feedback with carry shift registers, but also develop rational approximation algorithms which create new analyses of stream ciphers.;The cryptographic implication of the current work is that any sequences used in stream ciphers must have large N-adic complexities and large AFSR-based complexities as well as large linear complexities.