Cryptography in World War II

Jefferson Institute for Lifelong Learning at UVa

Spring 2006 David Evans
Menu
Class 4: • Some loose ends on WWII
Modern • Maurice Burnett
Cryptography
• Modern Cryptography
– Modern symmetric ciphers
– Public-key cryptosystems

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/jillcrypto JILL WWII Crypto Spring 2006 - Class 4: Modern Cryptography 2

British Cipher Machine German Code-Breaking Efforts

• Design based on
commercial Enigma • About 6,000 people (compare to 12,000
working at Bletchley Park)
• 5 rotor wheels (instead
• Decentralized: each military branch had
of 3 in Enigma) their own, didn’t share what they learned
• Multiple rings per rotor • Effective against manual codes: broke
• Last 2 rotor wheels about 50% of manually coded messages
didn’t rotate • Didn’t attempt to break rotor-based
• British attempted to ciphers – so confident Enigma was
break it (without unbreakable, didn’t try to Typex and
success) similar machines
Typex Machine
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Lorenz Cipher

From http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/fish.htm

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 Modern Symmetric Ciphers Modern Ciphers
A billion billion is a large number, but
it's not that large a number.
Whitfield Diffie • AES (Rijndael) successor to DES
selected 2001
• Same idea but: • 128-bit keys, encrypt 128-bit blocks
–Use digital logic instead of • Brute force attack (around 1030 times
mechanical rotors harder than Lorenz)
–Larger keys (random bits, not rotor – Try 1 Trillion keys per second
– Would take 10790283070806000000 years
alignments) to try all keys!
• Lorenz ≈ 512 < 109 – If that’s not enough, can use 256-bit key
• Modern ≥ 128 bits > 1037 • No known techniques that do better
–Encrypt blocks of letters at a time than brute force search
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Login Process Sending Passwords

Terminal
Login: alyssa
Password: fido
login sends Trusted Subsystem Encrypt The Internet
<“alyssa”, “fido”>

Eve

User Server
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The Internet

Ciphertext

Plaintext Encrypt Decrypt Plaintext Key Agreement Demo

K K

User C = EncryptK (P) Server (Animated version at

end of slides.)
P = DecryptK (C)
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 Asymmetric Cryptosystems One-Way Functions
• Easy to compute, hard to invert
• Need a hard problem (like symmetric
• Trap-door one way function:
cryptosystems)
– D (E (M)) = M
• With a trap door: if you know a
– E and D are easy to compute.
secret, the hard problem becomes
– Revealing E doesn’t reveal an easy way
easy to compute D.
– Hence, anyone who knows E can encrypt,
but only someone who knows D can
decrypt

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RSA [Rivest, Shamir, Adelman 78] Security of RSA

One-way function:
multiplication is easy, factoring is hard • n is public, but not p and q where n =
Trap-door: number theory (Euler and Fermat) pq
• How much work is factoring n?
Number Field Sieve (fastest known factoring
algorithm) is:

O(e1.9223((ln (n))1/3 (ln (ln (n)))2/3)

n ~200 digits – would take quintillions of years

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Asymmetric Cryptosystems Public-Key Applications:

Privacy
Alice Bob
• Encryption and Decryption are done
with different keys Ciphertext
Plaintext Encrypt Decrypt Plaintext
• Keep one of the keys secret, reveal
the other Bob’s Public Key Bob’s Private Key

• Alice encrypts message to Bob using

EKRA (EKUA (M)) = M Bob’s Public Key
Alice’s Public Key: KUA Only KRA can decrypt • Only Bob knows Bob’s Private Key ⇒
Alice’s Private Key: KRA
a message encrypted
using KUA.
only Bob can decrypt message
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 Signatures
Bob The Internet
Alice Signed
Message
Plaintext Encrypt Decrypt Plaintext Ciphertext

Alice’s Private Key Alice’s Public Key

Plaintext Encrypt Decrypt Plaintext
• Bob knows it was from Alice, since only
Alice knows Alice’s Private Key
• Non-repudiation: Alice can’t deny signing KUS KRS
message (except by claiming her key was
stolen!) User Public Key Private Key Server
• Integrity: Bob can’t change message
(doesn’t know Alice’s Private Key) How does User know the public key to use?

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Approach 1: Meet Secretly

• User and Server Operator meet
secretly and swap public keys
Key Management – If you can do that, might as well agree
on a secret (symmetric key) instead
– Doesn’t work for Internet transactions

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Approach 2:
Public Announcement Approach 3: Public Directory
• Trusted authority maintains directory
• Publish public keys in a public mapping names to public keys
forum • Entities register public keys with
– Append to email messages authority in some secure way
– Post on web site • Authority publishes directory
– New York Time classifieds – Print using watermarked paper, special
• Easy for rogue to pretend to be fonts, etc.
someone else – Allow secure electronic access
• Depends on secure distribution of directory’s
– Forge email, alter web site, lie to New key
York Times
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 Approach 4: Certificates SSL (Secure Sockets
Layer)
Browser Server
VeriSign Hello
KUS $$$$ KRCA[Server Identity, KUS]

CS = EKRVeriSign[“Server”, KUS] Check Certificate

using KUCA
Request Pick random K
KUS[K]
Find K
using
CS Note: This is slightly
simplified from the actual KRS
User Server SSL protocol. This version
is vulnerable to a person-in-

EKUVeriSign (CS) = [“Server”, KUS] Knows KRS

the-middle attack!
Secure channel using K

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Data encrypted using secret key

exchanged using some public key
associated with some certificate.

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 SSL Recap
Browser Server
Hello

KRCA[Server Identity, KUS]

Check Certificate Questions?
using KUCA
Pick random K
KUS[K]
Find K
using
Note: This is slightly
simplified from the actual KRS
SSL protocol. This version
is vulnerable to a person-in-
the-middle attack! Secure channel using K

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Padlocked Boxes
Animated version of
Asymmetric Cryptography Hi!

Demo
Alice

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Padlocked Boxes Padlocked Boxes

Alice’s Padlock Shady

Sammy’s
Slimy
Shipping
Hi!

Alice Alice Service

Alice’s Padlock Key Alice’s Padlock Key

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 Padlocked Boxes Padlocked Boxes

Bob’s Padlock

Hi!
Alice Alice

Hi!
Alice’s Padlock Key Bob Alice’s Padlock Key Bob
Bob’s Padlock Key Bob’s Padlock Key

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Padlocked Boxes Padlocked Boxes

Hi!

Alice Alice

Hi!
Alice’s Padlock Key Bob Bob
Bob’s Padlock Key Bob’s Padlock Key

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Padlocked Boxes

Hi!

Alice
Hi!

Bob
Bob’s Padlock Key

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