CPSC 525 Research Homework: Modes that Combine Encryption and Authentication

Topic. For this assignment, you are to write a well-researched, well-edited paper, at least 3 double-spaced pages, not including references. The topic is as follows:

In class, we discussed block cipher modes of operation for achieving message privacy, and MACs for achieving message authentication, and then showed ways of combining the two. However, there are also modes of operation designed to achieve both message privacy and authentication, by merging the features of a MAC directly into the mode. You are to choose one such mode to research and present your findings in the paper.

Structure and Content. Your paper should include the following components, organized in a logical flow and written as cohesive paragraphs:

1. Find one mode of operation that is designed to achieve both message privacy and authentication. Give an overview of the mode with details including its authors, date of publication, and what problems it was designed to solve. Also, try to find and cite one or more application protocols or cryptographic libraries in which the chosen mode has been implemented.

2. Describe in detail how the mode works. Do not just paste formulas in your paper; rather, give a high-level, readable English description of the operations of the mode. One good approach here is to use our hypothetical communicators, Alice and Bob, going through the procedures of message construction, transmission, decryption, and validation for one complete authenticated message. Supplement the description with your own intuitions and analysis of how these operations work to ensure different aspects of secure communication. You dont need to use a lot of math in this portion; rather, strive to present as clearly as possible an intuitive understanding of the protocol.

3. Compare and contrast the security and efficiency of your chosen mode with the methods discussed in class for combining encryption and authentication, and with other modes. You can mention any known weaknesses of the scheme you find in the literature, with proper citations.

Citations. All facts and claims presented should be backed up by citations to appropriate references. Wikipedia articles, news articles on technology websites, and blog postings are not appropriate sources to cite for this paper. You are welcome to use Wikipedia to find pointers to the original sources and to aid your own understanding; however, your paper must be based on the original published research.

The paper should be formatted in either IEEE or APA reference styles. See the following link for a description of the IEEE reference format:

https://www.ieee.org/documents/ieeecitationref.pdf

Grade. The papers grade will be assigned based on the following criteria:

On-topic

Correct spelling, grammar and usage

Objective, scholarly tone

Organization and clarity

Sufficient detail

Depth of analysis

Support of claims with factual sources and sound reasoning

Research hint. An excellent website for searching for cryptography research papers and downloading their PDFs is http://eprint.iacr.org/ . However, this is only a preprint archive, which means that the papers hosted there are not the official published versions. For your citations, you should make your best effort to cite the peer-reviewed published version of any paper. You will probably want to use Google Scholar for this.

Final note. If you have any concerns or are not sure if your topic is appropriate, please dont hesitate to contact me. I will also gladly read your drafts and give feedback before the deadline.

The subject is Computer Science (Encryption and Ethuntication).