The purpose of this assignment is to run, time and compare different encryption algorithms.

The assignment has programming and evaluation parts:

• write several programs that call encryption functions;
• run the programs and record the running time of the cryptographic functions;
• prepare a report to detail your findings.

Programming Tasks: Write 3 programs using different symmetric encryption algorithms.

Each program should have this structure:

1. generate a key of suitable size
2. create a sample block of plaintext of suitable size
3. in a loop encrypt the plaintext multiple times and record the running time
4. prepare a block of cyphertext (maybe saved from previous step)
5. in a loop decrypt the cyphertext multiple times and record the running time
6. compute average time to encrypt one block, and average time to decrypt one block

Prepare a Report: Your report should contain the following:

• a plot showing the timing results for encryption and decryption times for the algorithms used.
• compare encryption with decryption times in general and for the specific algorithms used. Explain your observations.

Notes:

• You must run all programs on your personal Linux system. It has encryption capabilities installed.
• Several encryption algorithms are supported: select 3, but one of them must be AES. Don't use a stream cipher, like RC4.
• To measure the running time of the encryption functions make sure to exclude I/O and other general computations.

Deliverables:

• 3 source code files
• a PDF file containing your report

Submit the assignment as Blackboard group assignment submission.