Classical Encryption

Techniques
• Symmetric encryption
• Secret key encryption
• Shared key encryption
 Symmetric Encryption
• or conventional / secret-key / single-key
• sender and recipient share a common key
• was the only type of cryptography, prior to
invention of public-key in 1970’s
 Basic Terminology
• plaintext - the original message
• ciphertext - the 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) - the study of principles/
methods of deciphering ciphertext without knowing key
• cryptology - the 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
Y = EK(X)
X = DK(Y)
• assume encryption algorithm is known
• implies a secure channel to distribute key
 Cryptography
• can be characterized by:
– type of encryption operations used
• substitution / transposition / product
– number of keys used
• single-key or secret-key vs two-key or public-key
– way in which plaintext is processed
• block / stream
 Types of Cryptanalytic Attacks
• ciphertext only
– only know algorithm / ciphertext, statistical, can
identify plaintext
• known plaintext
– know/suspect plaintext & ciphertext to attack cipher
• chosen plaintext
– select plaintext and obtain ciphertext to attack cipher
• chosen ciphertext
– select ciphertext and obtain plaintext to attack cipher
• chosen text
– select either plaintext or ciphertext to en/decrypt to
attack cipher
 Brute Force Search
• always possible to simply try every key
• most basic attack, proportional to key size
• assume either know / recognise plaintext
 More Definitions
• unconditional security
– no matter how much computer power 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 (e.g., time
needed for calculations is greater than age of
universe), the cipher cannot be broken
 Types of Ciphers

• Substitution ciphers
• Permutation (or transposition) ciphers
• Product ciphers
 Classical Substitution Ciphers

• where letters of plaintext are replaced by

other letters or by numbers or symbols
• or if plaintext is viewed as a sequence of
bits, then substitution involves replacing
plaintext bit patterns with ciphertext bit
patterns
 The Caesar cipher (e.g)
• The Caesar cipher is a substitution cipher,
named after Julius Caesar.
• Operation principle:
each letter is translated into the letter a
fixed number of positions after it in the
alphabet table.
• The fixed number of positions is a key
both for encryption and decryption.

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 The Caesar cipher (cnt’d)
K=3
Outer: plaintext

Inner: ciphertext

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 An example
• For a key K=3,
plaintext letter: ABCDEF...UVWXYZ
ciphtertext letter: DEF...UVWXYZABC
• Hence
TREATY IMPOSSIBLE
is translated into
WUHDWB LPSRVVLEOH

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 Caesar Cipher
• earliest known substitution cipher
• by Julius Caesar (?)
• first attested use in military affairs
• replaces each letter by 3rd letter on
• example:
meet me after the toga party
PHHW PH DIWHU WKH WRJD SDUWB
• What’s the key?
 Caesar Cipher
• can define transformation as:
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
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

• mathematically give each letter a number

a b c d e f g h i j k l m
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
n o p q r s t u v w x y Z
13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

• then have Caesar cipher as:

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
• e.g., break ciphertext "GCUA VQ DTGCM"
 Breaking classic ciphers
• With the help of fast computers, 99.99%
ciphers used before 1976 are breakable
by using one of the 4 types of attacks
(described later).
• Modern cluster computers and future
quantum computers can break several
existing ciphers due to the power of such
computers.

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 Breaking the Caesar cipher
• By trial-and error
• By using statistics on letters
– frequency distributions of letters
letter percent
A 7.49%
B 1.29%
C 3.54%
D 3.62%
E 14.00%
..................................
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 Polyalphabetic Ciphers
• another approach to improving security is to use
multiple cipher alphabets
• called polyalphabetic substitution ciphers
• makes 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
is the Vigenère 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
• 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
 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 the ‘number
of alphabets’ in the key string (aka. the
period of the key), since then can attach
each
 Kasiski Method
• method developed by Babbage / Kasiski
• repetitions in ciphertext give clues to period
• so find same plaintext an exact period apart
• which results in the same ciphertext

• e.g., repeated “VTW” in previous example

• suggests size of 3 or 9
• then attack each monoalphabetic cipher
individually using same techniques as before
 Autokey Cipher
• ideally want a key as long as the message
• Vigenère proposed the autokey cipher
• with keyword is 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
• e.g., given key ‘deceptive’
key: deceptivewearediscoveredsav
plaintext: wearediscoveredsaveyourself
ciphertext:ZICVTWQNGKZEIIGASXSTSLVVWLA
 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
• have problem of safe distribution of key
 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
 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
 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
– cryptanalysis using letter frequencies
– polyalphabetic ciphers
– transposition ciphers
– product ciphers and rotor machines
– stenography