Analysis of the Bit-Search Generator and Sequence Compression Techniques.

Aline Gouget, Hervé Sibert, Côme Berbain, Nicolas Courtois, Blandine Debraize, Chris J. Mitchell

Abstract

Algebraic attacks on stream ciphers apply (at least theoretically) to all LFSR-based stream ciphers that are clocked in a simple and/or easily predictable way. One interesting approach to help resist such attacks is to add a component that de-synchronizes the output bits of the cipher from the clock of the LFSR. The Bit-search generator, recently proposed by Gouget and Sibert, is inspired by the so-called Self-Shrinking Generator which is known for its simplicity (conception and implementation-wise) linked with some interesting properties. In this paper, we introduce two modified versions of the BSG, called MBSG and ABSG, and some of their properties are studied. We apply a range of cryptanalytic techniques in order to compare the security of the BSGs.