Abstract

One of the most common tasks in cryptography and cryptanalysis is to find some interesting event (a needle) in an exponentially large collection (haystack) of N = 2n possible events, or to demonstrate that no such event is likely to exist. In particular, we are interested in finding needles which are defined as events that happen with an unusually high probability of p ≫ 1/N in a haystack which is an almost uniform distribution on N possible events. When the search algorithm can only sample values from this distribution, the best known time/memory tradeoff for finding such an event requires O(1/Mp2) time given O(M) memory. In this paper we develop much faster needle searching algorithms in the common cryptographic setting in which the distribution is defined by applying some deterministic function f to random inputs. Such a distribution can be modelled by a random directed graph with N vertices in which almost all the vertices have O(1) predecessors while the vertex we are looking for has an unusually large number of O(pN) predecessors. When we are given only a constant amount of memory, we propose a new search methodology which we call NestedRho. As p increases, such random graphs undergo several subtle phase transitions, and thus the log-log dependence of the time complexity T on p becomes a piecewise linear curve which bends four times. Our new algorithm is faster than the O(1/p2) time complexity of the best previous algorithm in the full range of 1/N < p < 1, and in particular it improves the previous time complexity by a significant factor of (Formula presented) for any p in the range N−0.75 < p < N−0.5. When we are given more memory, we show how to combine the NestedRho technique with the parallel collision search technique in order to further reduce its time complexity. Finally, we show how to apply our new search technique to more complicated distributions with multiple peaks when we want to find all the peaks whose probabilities are higher than p.

Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationAdvances in Cryptology - 36th Annual International Cryptology Conference, CRYPTO 2016, Proceedings
Subtitle of host publication36th Annual International Cryptology Conference, CRYPTO 2016, Proceedings
EditorsMatthew Robshaw, Jonathan Katz
PublisherSpringer Verlag
Pages185-206
Number of pages22
ISBN (Print)9783662530078
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2016
Event36th Annual International Cryptology Conference, CRYPTO 2016 - Santa Barbara, United States
Duration: 14 Aug 201618 Aug 2016

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume9815

Conference

Conference36th Annual International Cryptology Conference, CRYPTO 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySanta Barbara
Period14/08/1618/08/16

Keywords

  • Cryptanalysis
  • Mode detection
  • Needles in haystacks
  • Parallel collision search
  • Rho algorithms

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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