Volume 11, Number 09, June 2021

Applications of SKREM-Like Symmetric Key Ciphers

  Authors

Mircea-Adrian Digulescu, University of Bucharest, Romania

  Abstract

In a prior paper we introduced a new symmetric key encryption scheme called Short Key Random Encryption Machine (SKREM), for which we claimed excellent security guarantees. In this paper we present and briefly discuss how some other cryptographic applications besides plain text encryption can benefit from the same security guarantees. We task ourselves with and succeed in showing how Secure Coin Flipping, Cryptographic Hashing, Zero-Leaked-Knowledge Authentication and Authorization and a Digital Signature scheme which can be employed on a block-chain, can all be achieved using SKREM-like ciphers, benefiting from their security guarantees. We also briefly recap SKREMlike ciphers and the core traits which make them so secure. The realizations of the above applications are novel because they do not involve public key cryptography. Furthermore, the security of SKREMlike ciphers is not based on hardness of some algebraic operations, thus not opening them up to specific quantum computing attacks.

  Keywords

Symmetric Key Encryption, Provable Security, One Time Pad, Zero Knowledge, Cryptographic Commit Protocol, Secure Coin Flipping, Authentication, Authorization, Cryptographic Hash, Digital Signature, Chaos Machine.