19.10 Finite Automaton Public-Key Cryptosystems

LUC
Some cryptographers have developed generalizations of RSA that use various

permutation polynomials instead of exponentiation. A variation called
Kravitz-Reed, using irreducible binary polynomials [898], is insecure [451,
589]. Winfried MŸller and Wilfried Nöbauer use Dickson polynomials [1127,
1128, 965]. Rudolph Lidl and MŸller generalized this approach in [966, 1126]
(a variant is called the Réidi scheme), and Nöbauer looked at its security in
[1172, 1173]. (Comments on prime generation with Lucas functions are in
[969, 967, 968, 598].) Despite all of this prior art, a group of researchers from
New Zealand managed to patent this scheme in 1993, calling it LUC [1486,
521,1487].
The nth Lucas number, Vn(P,1), is defined as
Vn(P, 1) = PVn-1 (P, 1) - Vn- 2 (P,1)
There’s a lot more theory to Lucas numbers; I’m ignoring all of it. A good
theoretical treatment of Lucas sequences is in [1307, 1308]. A particularly nice
description of the mathematics of LUC is in [1494, 708].
In any case, to generate a public-key/private-key key pair, first choose two
large primes, p and q. Calculate n, the product of p and q. The encryption key,
e, is a random number that is relatively prime to p - 1, q - 1, p + 1, and q + 1.
There are four possible decryption keys,
d = e-1 mod (lcm((p + 1), (q + 1)))
d = e-1 mod (lcm((p + 1), (q - 1)))
d = e-1 mod (lcm((p - 1), (q + 1)))
d = e-1 mod (lcm((p - 1), (q - 1)))
where lcm is the least common multiple.
The public key is d and n; the private key is e and n. Discard p and q.
To encrypt a message, P (P must be less than n), calculate
C = Ve(P, 1) (mod n )
And to decrypt:
P = Vd P, 1) (mod n), with the proper d
At best, LUC is no more secure than RSA. And recent, still-unpublished
results show how to break LUC in at least some implementations. I just don’t
trust it.
19.10 Finite Automaton Public-Key Cryptosystems
Chinese cryptographer Tao Renji has developed a public-key algorithm based
on finite automata [1301, 1302, 1303, 1300, 1304, 666]. Just as it is hard to
factor the product of two large primes, it is also hard to factor the composition
of two finite automata. This is especially so if one or both of them is nonlinear.
Much of this research took place in China in the 1980s and was published in
Chinese. Renji is starting to write in English. His main result was that certain
nonlinear automata (the quasilinear automata) possess weak inverses if, and
only if, they have a certain echelon matrix structure. This property disappears
if they are composed with another automaton (even a linear one). In the
public-key algorithm, the secret key is an invertible quasilinear automaton and
a linear automaton, and the corresponding public key can be derived by
multiplying them out term by term. Data is encrypted by passing it through the
public automaton, and decrypted by passing it through the inverses of its
components (in some cases provided they have been set to a suitable initial
state). This scheme works for both encryption and digital signatures.
The performance of such systems can be summed up by saying that like
McEliece’s system, they run much faster than RSA, but require longer keys.
The keylength thought to give similar security to 512-bit RSA is 2792 bits, and
to 1024-bit RSA is 4152 bits. For the former case, the system encrypts data at
20, 869 bytes/sec and decrypts data at 17, 117 bytes/sec, running on a 33 Mhz
80486.
Renji has published three algorithms. The first is FAPKC0. This is a weak
system which uses linear components, and is primarily illustrative. Two
serious systems, FAPKC1 and FAPKC2, use one linear and one nonlinear
component each. The latter is more complex, and was developed in order to
support identity-based operation.
As for their strength, quite a lot of work has been done on them in China
(where there are now over 30 institutes publishing cryptography and security
papers). One can see from the considerable Chinese language literature that the
problem has been studied.
One possible attraction of FAPKC1 and FAPKC2 is that they are not
encumbered by any U.S. patents. Thus, once the Diffie-Hellman patent expires
in 1997, they will unquestionably be in the public domain.

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LUC

Some cryptographers have developed generalizations of RSA that use various

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