January 22, 2002
Practical Aspects of Modern Cryptography
6
What makes a cipher secure?
nExhaustive search of keyspace must be infeasible
nMore about this later…
nIt must also be infeasible to find the key given:
nSample ciphertext and corresponding plaintext (“known-plaintext attack”)
nThe ability to feed ciphertext in and see what plaintext comes out (“chosen-ciphertext attack”)
nor the other way around (“chosen-plaintext attack”)
nIf someone can find keys under any of these conditions, the cipher isn’t considered secure