Cryptography

DR. ADNAN HAIDER

Welcome

Course objectives:
 Learn how crypto primitives work
 Learn how to use them correctly and reason about security
Course Outlines

 Introduction
 Symmetric Encryption
 Asymmetric Encryption
 Hashing
 Digital Certificate
Book
 Cryptography is everywhere

Secure communication:

 web traffic: HTTPS

 wireless traffic: 802.11i WPA2 (and WEP), GSM, Bluetooth

Encrypting files on disk: EFS, TrueCrypt

Content protection (e.g. DVD, Blu-ray): CSS, AACS

User authentication

… and much much more

Secure communication

no eavesdropping
no tampering
 Secure Sockets Layer / TLS

Two main parts

1. Handshake Protocol: Establish shared secret key

using public-key cryptography (2nd part of course)

2. Record Layer: Transmit data using shared secret key

Ensure confidentiality and integrity (1st part of

course)
 Protected files on disk

Disk

Alice File 1 Alice

No eavesdropping
No tampering
File 2

Analogous to secure communication:

Alice today sends a message to Alice tomorrow
Crypto Core

Talking Talking
to Bob to Alice
Secret key establishment:
Alice
Bob

attacker???

Secure communication:
k m1
k
m2
confidentiality and integrity
 But crypto can do much more

 Digital signatures

 Anonymous communication
Who did I
just talk to?

Alice
Alice
Bob signature
But crypto can do much more

 Digital signatures

 Anonymous communication

 Anonymous digital cash

 Can I spend a “digital coin” without anyone knowing who I am?
 How to prevent double spending?

Who
1$ Alice was
Internet that?
(anon. comm.)
Protocols

 Elections
 Private auctions
Protocols

 Elections
 Private auctions

trusted
Goal: compute f(x1, x2, x3, x4)
authority

“Thm:” anything that can done with trusted auth. can also
be done without
 Secure multi-party computation
 Crypto magic
 Privately outsourcing computation What did
she search
for?
search
query E[ query ]
Alice

E[ results ]
 Zero knowledge (proof of knowledge)
results

???

Alice I know the factors of N !!

N=p∙q N
proof π Bob
 Things to remember

Cryptography is:
 A tremendous tool
 The basis for many security mechanisms

Cryptography is not:
 The solution to all security problems
 Reliable unless implemented and used properly
 Something you should try to invent yourself

• many many examples of broken ad-hoc designs

End of Segment
Classical Encryption
Symmetric Encryption

 or conventional / private-key / single-key

 sender and recipient share a common key
 all classical encryption algorithms are private-key
 was only type prior to invention of public-key in 1970’s
 and by far most widely used
Some Basic Terminology

 plaintext - original message

 ciphertext - coded message
 cipher - algorithm for transforming plaintext to ciphertext
 key - info used in cipher known only to sender/receiver
 encipher (encrypt) - converting plaintext to ciphertext
 decipher (decrypt) - recovering ciphertext from plaintext
 cryptography - study of encryption principles/methods
 cryptanalysis (codebreaking) - study of principles/
methods of deciphering ciphertext without knowing key
 cryptology - field of both cryptography and cryptanalysis
Symmetric Cipher Model
Requirements

 two requirements for secure use of symmetric encryption:

 a strong encryption algorithm
 a secret key known only to sender / receiver
 mathematically have:
Y = EK(X)
X = DK(Y)
 assume encryption algorithm is known
 implies a secure channel to distribute key
Cryptography

 characterize cryptographic system by:

 type of encryption operations used
 substitution / transposition / product

 number of keys used

 single-key or private / two-key or public

 way in which plaintext is processed

 block / stream
Cryptanalysis

 objective to recover key not just message

 general approaches:
 cryptanalytic attack
 brute-force attack
Cryptanalytic Attacks

 ciphertext only
 only know algorithm & ciphertext, is statistical, know or can identify plaintext
 known plaintext
 know/suspect plaintext & ciphertext
 chosen plaintext
 select plaintext and obtain ciphertext
 chosen ciphertext
 select ciphertext and obtain plaintext
 chosen text
 select plaintext or ciphertext to en/decrypt
More Definitions

 unconditional security
 no matter how much computer power or time is available, the cipher cannot be
broken since the ciphertext provides insufficient information to uniquely determine
the corresponding plaintext
 computational security
 given limited computing resources (eg time needed for calculations is greater
than age of universe), the cipher cannot be broken
Brute Force Search

 Brute force search means to try every possible key

 This is a basic attack, and its speed is proportional to key size
 You should know or be able to recognise plaintext

Key Size (bits) Number of Alternative Avg. Time required at 1 Avg. Time required at 106
Keys decryption/µs decryptions/µs
32 232 = 4.3  109 231 µs = 35.8 minutes 2.15 milliseconds
56 256 = 7.2  1016 255 µs = 1142 years 10.01 hours
128 2128 = 3.4  1038 2127 µs = 5.4  1024 years 5.4  1018 years

168 2168 = 3.7  1050 2167 µs = 5.9  1036 years 5.9  1030 years

26 characters 26! = 4  1026 2  1026 µs = 6.4  1012 years 6.4  106 years
(permutation)
Classical Substitution Ciphers

Substitution Ciphers involves:

 Replacing letters of plaintext by other letters, numbers, or symbols.
 In digital word, replacing plaintext bit patterns with ciphertext bit patterns
Substitution Ciphers

 Single Letter Cipher

 Caser Cipher
 Multi-letter Cipher
 Polyfair Cipher
 Hill Cipher
 Polyalphabetic Cipher
 Vigenère Cipher
 Vernam Cipher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFifNTTrSEc
Encrypt by Shifting
Caesar Cipher
Caesar Cipher

 The simplest substitution cipher

 The exact origin of this technique is unclear; however, It is named after
Julius Caesar, who used it in military communication.
 first attested use in military affairs replaces each letter by 3rd letter on
 example:
meet me after class
PHHW PH DIWHU FODVV
 Caesar Cipher

 The transformation can be defined by listing all possibilities, as follows:

plain: a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
cipher: D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A B C
 Then, substituting letters of plaintext by its substitution in
the ciphertext mapped underneath

c = E(p) = (p + k) mod (26)

p = D(c) = (c – k) mod (26)
Caesar Cipher | Mathematic
Expression

 Mathematically representation is achieved as follows:

 Give each letter a unique number from 0 to N-1 where N is the total number of alphabet
letters as follows:
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
 Then, encryption/decryption functions can be derived as follows

c = E(p) = (p + k) mod (26)

p = D(c) = (c – k) mod (26)
Cryptanalysis of Caesar Cipher

 only have 26 possible ciphers

 A maps to A,B,..Z
 could simply try each in turn; a brute force search
 given ciphertext, just try all shifts of letters.
 do need to recognize when have plaintext
 eg. break ciphertext "GCUA VQ DTGCM"
Brute-Force Cryptanalysis of Caesar
Cipher
Ciphertext
PHHW PH DIWHU WKH WRJD SDUWB
Keys Brute-Force decoding Keys Brute-Force decoding
0 PHHW PH DIWHU WKH WRJD SDUWB 13 btti bt puitg iwt idvp epgin
1 nffu nf bgufs uif uphb qbsuz 14 assh as othsf hvs hcuo dofhm
2 meet me after the toga party 15 zrrg zr nsgre gur gbtn cnegl
3 ldds ld zesdq sgd snfz ozqsx 16 yqqf yq mrfqd ftq fasm bmdfk
4 kccr kc ydrcp rfc rmey nyprw 17 xppe xp lqepc esp ezrl alcej
5 jbbq jb xcqbo qeb qldx mxoqv 18 wood wo kpdob dro dyqk zkbdi
6 iaap ia wbpan pda pkcw lwnpu 19 vnnc vn jocna cqn cxpj yjach
7 hzzo hz vaozm ocz ojbv kvmot 20 ummb um inbmz bpm bwoi xizbg
8 gyyn gy uznyl nby niau julns 21 tlla tl hmaly aol avnh whyaf
9 fxxm fx tymxk max mhzt itkmr 22 skkz sk glzkx znk zumg vgxze
10 ewwl ew sxlwj lzw lgys hsjlq 23 rjjy rj fkyjw ymj ytlf ufwyd
11 dvvk dv rwkvi kyv kfxr grikp 24 qiix qi ejxiv xli xske tevxc
12 cuuj cu qvjuh jxu jewq fqhjo 25 oggv og chvgt vjg vqic rctva
Caesar Cipher | Brute-Force

 Brute force attack is possible because:

 Cipher algorithms are known
 Short number of keys to try: There are only 25 keys to try
 The language of plaintext is known and easily recognizable.
Brute-Force Cryptanalysis of Caesar
Cipher

It is very easy to break

Is there any better way of using substitution?
Monoalphabetic Cipher

 What if we shuffle the letters arbitrarily (i.e. uses Arbitrary Substitution / Permutation).
 Each plaintext letter maps to a different random ciphertext letter, hence key is 26 letters
long
 How much does it take to break the encryption (being able to recognize plaintext)?

Plain: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Cipher: DKVQFIBJWPESCXHTMYAUOLRGZN

Plaintext: ifwewishtoreplaceletters
Ciphertext: WIRFRWAJUHYFTSDVFSFUUFYA
Arbitrary Substitution | Permutation

 A permutation of a finite set of elements S is an ordered sequence of all the elements of

S, with each element appearing exactly once.
 For example, if S = {a, b, c}, there are six permutations of S: abc, acb, bac, bca, cab, cba

 In general, there are n! permutations of a set of n elements.

Monoalphabetic Cipher Security

 Arbitrary Substitution have a total of 𝟐𝟔! = 𝟒 𝒙 𝟏𝟎𝟐𝟔 keys

 Unlike Caesar cipher, there are so many keys.
 Is this approach secure?
 Is it difficult to break?
 No, but Why? problem is language characteristics
Language Redundancy and
Cryptanalysis

 human languages are redundant

 eg "pls wrk hrd"
 letters are not equally commonly used
 in English E is by far the most common letter
 followed by T,R,N,I,O,A,S
 other letters like Z,J,K,Q,X are fairly rare
 have tables of single, double & triple letter
frequencies for various languages
English Letter Frequencies
Arabic Letter Frequencies
Letter Frequencies & Cryptanalysis

 key concept - monoalphabetic substitution ciphers do not

change relative letter frequencies
 discovered by Arabian scientists in 9th century
 calculate letter frequencies for ciphertext
 compare counts/plots against known values
 if Caesar cipher look for common peaks/troughs
 For monoalphabetic, You must identify each letter
 tables of common double/triple letters help
Example Cryptanalysis

 given ciphertext:
UZQSOVUOHXMOPVGPOZPEVSGZWSZOPFPESXUDBMETSXAIZ
VUEPHZHMDZSHZOWSFPAPPDTSVPQUZWYMXUZUHSX
EPYEPOPDZSZUFPOMBZWPFUPZHMDJUDTMOHMQ

 count relative letter frequencies (see text)

 guess P & Z are e and t
 guess ZW is th and hence ZWP is the
 The letters {S, U, O, M, H} are all of relatively high frequency and probably correspond to plain letters from the set {a, h, i,
n, o, r, s}
 {A, B, G, Y, I, J) are likely included in the set {b, j, k, q, v, x, z}
 proceeding with trial and error finally get:
it was disclosed yesterday that several informal but
direct contacts have been made with political
representatives of the viet cong in moscow
Encrypt Two Letters at Once.
Defeat Single Letter
Frequencies.

Playfair Cipher
Playfair Cipher

 not even the large number of keys in a monoalphabetic cipher provides

security
 one approach to improving security was to encrypt multiple letters
 the Playfair Cipher is an example
 invented by Charles Wheatstone in 1854, but named after his friend Baron
Playfair
Playfair Key Matrix

 a 5X5 matrix of letters based on a keyword

 fill in letters of keyword (sans duplicates)
 fill rest of matrix with other letters
 eg. using the keyword MONARCHY

M O N A R
C H Y B D
E F G I/J K
L P Q S T
U V W X Z
Encrypting and Decrypting

 plaintext is encrypted two letters at a time

1. if a pair is a repeated letter, insert filler like 'X’
2. if both letters fall in the same row, replace each with letter to right
(wrapping back to start from end)
3. if both letters fall in the same column, replace each with the letter below it
(again wrapping to top from bottom)
4. otherwise each letter is replaced by the letter in the same row and in the
column of the other letter of the pair
Security of Playfair Cipher

 security much improved over monoalphabetic

 since have 26 x 26 = 676 digrams
 would need a 676 entry frequency table to analyse
(verses 26 for a monoalphabetic)
 and correspondingly more ciphertext
 was widely used for many years
 eg. by US & British military in WW1
 it can be broken, given a few hundred letters
 since still has much of plaintext structure
Encrypt by Shifting
Hill Cipher
Multiletter Substitution Cipher
(Hill Cipher)

 Substitute m successive plaintext letter with m ciphertext letters (e.g. m=3)

 encryption algorithm:
𝐶1 𝐾11 𝐾12 𝐾13 𝑃1
𝐶2 = 𝐾21 𝐾22 𝐾23 𝑃2 mod 2 6
𝐶3 𝐾31 𝐾32 𝐾33 𝑃3
𝐾11 𝐾12 𝐾13
where 𝐾 = 𝐾21 𝐾22 𝐾23 is the key, and det(k)≠0 mod 26
𝐾31 𝐾32 𝐾33
𝑃1 𝐾11 𝐾12 𝐾13 −1 𝐶1
 decryption algorithm: 𝑃2 = 𝐾21 𝐾22 𝐾23 𝐶2 mod 2 6
𝑃3 𝐾31 𝐾32 𝐾33 𝐶3
2
 Key space=26𝑚
Hill Cipher

 In general terms, the Hill system can be expressed as

C = E(K, P) = PK mod 26
𝑷 = 𝐷 𝑲, 𝑪 = 𝑪𝑲−1 𝑚𝑜𝑑 26 = 𝑷𝑲𝑲−1 = 𝑷
 We know that 𝐾11 𝐾12 𝐾13 𝐾11 𝐾12 𝐾13 −1
1 0 0
𝑲𝑲−1 = 𝐾21 𝐾22 𝐾23 𝐾21 𝐾22 𝐾23 =𝐼= 0 1 0
𝐾31 𝐾32 𝐾33 𝐾31 𝐾32 𝐾33 0 0 1
 So, 𝑲 −1 can be calculated as follows
𝑎1 𝑎2 𝑎3
 If 𝑲−1 = 𝑏1 𝑏2 𝑏3 THEN solve the following to obtain 𝑲−1
𝑐1 𝑐2 𝑐3
𝑎1 𝐾11 + 𝑏1 𝐾12 + 𝑐1 𝐾13 𝑎2 𝐾11 + 𝑏2 𝐾12 + 𝑐2 𝐾13 𝑎3 𝐾11 + 𝑏3 𝐾12 + 𝑐3 𝐾13 1 0 0
𝑲𝑲−1 = 𝑎1 𝐾21 + 𝑏1 𝐾22 + 𝑐1 𝐾23 𝑎2 𝐾21 + 𝑏2 𝐾22 + 𝑐2 𝐾23 𝑎3 𝐾21 + 𝑏3 𝐾22 + 𝑐3 𝐾23 = 0 1 0
𝑎1 𝐾31 + 𝑏1 𝐾32 + 𝑐1 𝐾33 𝑎2 𝐾31 + 𝑏2 𝐾32 + 𝑐2 𝐾33 𝑎3 𝐾31 + 𝑏3 𝐾32 + 𝑐3 𝐾33 0 0 1
Hill Cipher

 Find the det(K), and iff gcd det 𝐾 , 26 = 1 then proceed on

 If matrix is 2 × 2
𝑎 𝑏 1 𝑑 −𝑏
K= , det K ≡ 𝐾 = 𝑎𝑑 − 𝑏𝑐, 𝐾 −1 =
𝑐 𝑑 det 𝐾 −𝑐 𝑎
 If matrix is 3 × 3
k 22 k 23 k k 23 k k 22
det 𝐾 = K = k11 − k12 21 + k13 21
k 32 k 33 k 31 k 33 k 31 k 32

𝑘22 𝑘23 𝑘13 𝑘12 𝑘12 𝑘13

𝑘32 𝑘33 𝑘33 𝑘32 𝑘22 𝑘23
k11 k12 k13
1 𝑘23 𝑘21 𝑘11 𝑘13 𝑘13 𝑘11
K = k 21 k 22 k 23 , 𝐾 −1 = =
𝐾 𝑘33 𝑘31 𝑘31 𝑘33 𝑘23 𝑘21
k 31 k 32 k 33
𝑘21 𝑘22 𝑘12 𝑘11 𝑘11 𝑘12
𝑘31 𝑘32 𝑘32 𝑘31 𝑘21 𝑘22
Hill Cipher

 Example:
17 17 5 4 9 15
 𝐾 = 21 18 21 , 𝐾 −1 = 15 17 6
2 2 19 24 0 17
 It is easy to be broken by known plaintext attack by solve the following
equation:
𝐶 = 𝑃𝐾
 Case 1: if P-1 exists, then 𝑲 = 𝑷−𝟏 𝑪
 Case2: if P-1 not exist, then change P and C until P-1 found
Hill Cipher | Quiz

 Find the Key 𝐾2×2 if the encryption of gold is cyfz

 We know that 𝑲 = 𝑷−𝟏 𝑪 and 𝑷𝑷−𝟏 = 𝑰, So
 𝑔𝑜 = 6 14 and 𝑙𝑑 = 11 3

𝑎 𝑏
𝐾= ,
𝑐 𝑑
6 14 𝐾 = 6𝑎 + 14𝑐 6𝑐 + 14𝑑 = 2 24
11 3 𝐾 = 11𝑎 + 3𝑐 11𝑐 + 3𝑑 = 5 25
11 2 − 14𝑐 + 18𝑐 22 − 136𝑐
= =5
6 6
22 − 30 −8 1
𝑐= = =− = −1 × 17−1 = −1 × 23 = 3
136 136 17
Hill Cipher | Quiz

 Find the Key 𝐾2×2 if the encryption of gold is cyfz

 We know that 𝑲 = 𝑪𝑷−𝟏 and 𝑷𝑷−𝟏 = 𝑰, So
 Enc(gold)=CYFZ, Enc(bdbe)=LVOB

1 3 4 −3
𝑷= , 𝑷−𝟏 =
1 4 −1 1
4 −3 11 21 2 3
𝑲 = 𝑷−𝟏 𝑪 = =
−1 1 14 1 3 6
 Polyalphabetic Cipher
A Set of Related Monoalphabetic
Substitution Rules
Polyalphabetic Ciphers

 polyalphabetic substitution ciphers

 improve security using multiple cipher alphabets
 make cryptanalysis harder with more alphabets to
guess and flatter frequency distribution
 use a key to select which alphabet is used for each
letter of the message
 use each alphabet in turn
 repeat from start after end of key is reached
Vigenère Cipher

 simplest polyalphabetic substitution cipher

 effectively multiple caesar ciphers
 key is multiple letters long K = k1 k2 ... kd
 ith letter specifies ith alphabet to use
 use each alphabet in turn
 repeat from start after d letters in message
 decryption simply works in reverse
Example of Vigenère Cipher

 write the plaintext out

 write the keyword repeated above it
 use each key letter as a caesar cipher key
 encrypt the corresponding plaintext letter
 eg using keyword deceptive
key: deceptivedeceptivedeceptive
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGRZGVTWAVZHCQYGLMGJ
Aids

 simple aids can assist with en/decryption

 a Saint-Cyr Slide is a simple manual aid
 a slide with repeated alphabet
 line up plaintext 'A' with key letter, eg 'C'
 then read off any mapping for key letter
 can bend round into a cipher disk
 or expand into a Vigenère Tableau
Vigenère
Tableau
Security of Vigenère Ciphers

 have multiple ciphertext letters for each plaintext letter

 hence letter frequencies are obscured
 but not totally lost
 start with letter frequencies
 see if look monoalphabetic or not
 if not, then need to determine number of alphabets, since then can
attack each monoalphabetic ciphers separately
Kasiski Method

 method developed by Babbage / Kasiski

 repetitions in ciphertext give clues to period.
 So, look for repeated fragments in the ciphertext and compile
a list of the distances that separate the repetitions. Then, the
keyword length is likely to divide many of these distances.
 of course, could also be random fluke
 e.g. repeated “VTW” in previous example suggests size of 3 or 9
 Then attack each monoalphabetic cipher individually using
same techniques as before
key: deceptivedeceptivedeceptive
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGRZGVTWAVZHCQYGLMGJ
Kasiski Method
Autokey Cipher

 ideally want a key as long as the message

 Vigenère proposed the autokey cipher with keyword
prefixed to message as key
 knowing keyword can recover the first few letters
 use these in turn on the rest of the message
 but still have frequency characteristics to attack
 eg. given key deceptive
key: deceptivewearediscoveredsav
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGKZEIIGASXSTSLVVWLA
Vernam Cipher

 The ultimate defense against such a cryptanalysis is to choose a keyword

that is as long as the plaintext and has no statistical relationship to it.
 Such a system was introduced by an AT&T engineer named Gilbert
Vernam in 1918.
 One-Time Pad

 if a truly random key as long as the message is used, the cipher will be secure
 called a One-Time pad
 is unbreakable since ciphertext bears no statistical relationship to the plaintext
 since for any plaintext & any ciphertext there exists a key mapping one to
other
 can only use the key once though
 problems in generation & safe distribution of key
Perfect Secrecy

 It means that the ciphertext conveys no information about the content of

the plaintext.
 A ciphertext maintains perfect secrecy if the attacker’s knowledge of the
contents of the message is the same both before and after the adversary
inspects the ciphertext, attacking it with unlimited resources.
∀𝑚0 , 𝑚1 ∈ ℳ 𝑚0 = 𝑚1 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ∀𝑐 ∈ 𝒞, Pr 𝐸 𝑘, 𝑚0 = 𝑐 = Pr 𝐸 𝑘, 𝑚1 = 𝑐 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑘 ← 𝒦
 One-Time Pad is the only cryptosystem that provides perfect secrecy.

Thm: perfect secrecy ⇒ 𝒦 ≥ ℳ It is hard to use in practice

Transposition Ciphers

 now consider classical transposition or permutation ciphers

 these hide the message by rearranging the letter order
 without altering the actual letters used
 can recognise these since have the same frequency distribution as the
original text
Rail Fence cipher

 write message letters out diagonally over a

number of rows
 then read off cipher row by row
 eg. write message out as:
m e m a t r h t g p r y
e t e f e t e o a a t
 giving ciphertext
MEMATRHTGPRYETEFETEOAAT
Row Transposition Ciphers

 a more complex transposition

 write letters of message out in rows over a specified number of columns
 then reorder the columns according to some key before reading off the rows
Key: 3 4 2 1 5 6 7
Plaintext: a t t a c k p
o s t p o n e
d u n t i l t
w o a m x y z
Ciphertext: TTNAAPTMTSUOAODWCOIXKNLYPETZ
Product Ciphers

 ciphers using substitutions or transpositions are not

secure because of language characteristics
 hence consider using several ciphers in succession
to make harder, but:
 two substitutions make a more complex substitution
 two transpositions make more complex transposition
 but a substitution followed by a transposition makes a new
much harder cipher
 this is bridge from classical to modern ciphers
Rotor Machines

 before modern ciphers, rotor machines were most

common complex ciphers in use
 widely used in WW2
 German Enigma, Allied Hagelin, Japanese Purple
 implemented a very complex, varying substitution
cipher
 used a series of cylinders, each giving one substitution,
which rotated and changed after each letter was
encrypted
 with 3 cylinders have 263=17576 alphabets
Hagelin Rotor Machine
Steganography

 an alternative to encryption
 hides existence of message
 using only a subset of letters/words in a longer message marked in some way
 using invisible ink
 hiding in LSB in graphic image or sound file
 has drawbacks
 high overhead to hide relatively few info bits
Summary

 have considered:
 classical cipher techniques and terminology
 monoalphabetic substitution ciphers
 cryptanalysis using letter frequencies
 Playfair cipher
 polyalphabetic ciphers
 transposition ciphers
 product ciphers and rotor machines
 stenography
Secure Usage of Symmetric Encryption

 There are two requirements:

 Strong Encryption algorithm
 An attacker would not be able to decrypt the ciphertext nor discover the key, even if the
attacker is in possession of a number of ciphertexts together with the plaintext that produced
each ciphertext.
 Securely share the key between senders and receivers.