Complex Systems

Nonuniform Cellular Automata for Cryptography Download PDF

Marco Tomassini
Mathieu Perrenoud
Computer Science Institute,
University of Lausanne,
1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Abstract

Cryptography is a basic requirement in today's distributed information storage and transmission systems. A single key cryptographic system based on cellular automata is described. The approach employs high-quality pseudorandom bit sequences produced by one- and two-dimensional nonuniform cellular automata. The robustness of the scheme against cryptanalytic attacks is discussed and it is shown that direct cryptanalysis requires an exponential amount of computational resources. A further advantage of the proposed scheme is that it is eminently suitable for hardware implementation.