Using Quasigroups for Secure Encoding of File System Eliška Ochodková, Václav Snášel
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[email protected] Department of Computer Science Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Technical University of Ostrava Ostrava, Czech Republic Abstract In this article we discuss a method for encoding a file system based upon properties of quasigroups. The presented cipher, due to its simplicity, can be easily implemented, giving in consequence a very fast enci- phering and deciphering. Beside that, the method can be very secure and resisting to any attack. Keywords: file system, quasigroups, Latin square, cryptography, stream ciphers. 1. Introduction Cryptography deals with the transformation of ordinary text (plaintext) into coded form (cipher text) by encryption, and transformation of cipher text into plaintext by decryption. Three of the most important services provided by cryptosystems are secrecy, authenticity, and integrity. Secrecy refers to a denial of access to information by unauthorized individuals. Authenticity refers to validating the source of a message. Integrity refers to an assurance that a message was not modified accidentally or deliberately in transit, by replacement, insertion or deletion. An ideal system might solve all of problems concurrently, i.e., using public keys; providing secrecy; and providing authenticity. Unfortunately no single technique has met all three criteria. Conventional systems such as DES [7] require management of secret keys; systems using public key components may provide authenticity but are inefficient for bulk encryption of data due to low bandwidths. The aim of this paper is to focus the reader’s attention to the existence of an algebraic system called qua- sigroups and to show that it can be applied in cryptography for constructing stream ciphers.