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Contributor analysis

Formal Metadata

Title
Contributor analysis
Title of Series
Part Number
8
Number of Parts
20
Author
License
CC Attribution 4.0 International:
You are free to use, adapt and copy, distribute and transmit the work or content in adapted or unchanged form for any legal purpose as long as the work is attributed to the author in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
Identifiers
Publisher
Release Date2017
LanguageEnglish
Production PlaceBrüssel

Content Metadata

Subject Area
Genre
Abstract
Contributor analysis is a simple cryptanalysis technique which allows detecting and attacking blatantly broken cryptographic algorithms and implementations. Although the technique is inspired by the techniques employed by algebraic approaches it aims at being much simpler to understand and reason with, making it possible not only to automate the testing but also to even run tests using pen and paper. In this talk we will introduce the participants to this technique, explain briefly the theoretic principles that make it work and how it relates to algebraic cryptanalysis and then explain how to handle contributor lists with different common operations. We will explain how these lists can be used to mount an attack therefore proving why a succesfully attacked cipher can be considered broken. Finally we will show some simple examples of ciphers affected by these techniques. No mathematical nor cryptographical knowledge is needed to follow this talk although some programming or computer architecture knowledge is recommended.