{"title":"On equidistant single-orbit cyclic and quasi-cyclic subspace codes","authors":"Mahak, Maheshanand Bhaintwal","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01586-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01586-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A code is said to be equidistant if the distance between any two distinct codewords of the code is the same. In this paper, we have studied equidistant single-orbit cyclic and quasi-cyclic subspace codes. The orbit code generated by a subspace <i>U</i> in <span>({mathbb {F}}_{q^n})</span> such that the dimension of <i>U</i> over <span>({mathbb {F}}_q)</span> is <i>t</i> or <span>(n-t)</span>, <span>(text{ where }~t=dim _{{mathbb {F}}_q}(text{ Stab }(U)cup {0}))</span>, is equidistant and is termed a trivial equidistant orbit code. Using the concept of cyclic difference sets, we have proved that only the trivial equidistant single-orbit cyclic subspace codes exist. Further, we have explored equidistant single-orbit quasi-cyclic subspace codes, focusing specifically on those which are sunflowers.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143393287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Construction of optimal flag codes by MRD codes","authors":"Shuangqing Liu, Shuhui Yu, Lijun Ji","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01584-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01584-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Flag codes have received a lot of attention due to its application in random network coding. In 2021, Alonso-González et al. constructed optimal <span>((n,{mathcal {A}})_{q})</span>-Optimum distance flag codes (ODFC) for <span>({mathcal {A}}subseteq {1,2,ldots ,k,n-k,ldots ,n-1})</span> with <span>(kin {mathcal {A}})</span> and <span>(kmid n)</span>. In this paper, we introduce a new construction of <span>((n,{mathcal {A}})_q)</span>-ODFCs by maximum rank-metric codes, and prove that there is an <span>((n,{mathcal {A}})_{q})</span>-ODFC of size <span>(frac{q^n-q^{k+r}}{q^k-1}+1)</span> for any <span>({mathcal {A}}subseteq {1,2,ldots ,k,n-k,ldots ,n-1})</span> with <span>({mathcal {A}}cap {k,n-k}ne emptyset )</span>, where <span>(requiv npmod k)</span> and <span>(0le r<k)</span>. Furthermore, when <span>(k>frac{q^r-1}{q-1})</span>, this <span>((n,{mathcal {A}})_q)</span>-ODFC is optimal. Specially, when <span>(r=0)</span>, Alonso-González et al.’s result is also obtained. We also give a characterization of almost optimum distance flag codes, and construct a family of optimal almost optimum flag distance codes.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143375193","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The asymptotic existence of BIBDs having a nesting","authors":"Xinyue Ming, Tao Feng, Menglong Zhang","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01583-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01583-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A <span>((v,k,lambda ))</span>-BIBD <span>((X,mathcal {B}))</span> has a nesting if there is a mapping <span>(phi :mathcal {B}rightarrow X)</span> such that <span>((X,{Bcup {phi (B)}mid Bin mathcal {B}}))</span> is a <span>((v,k+1,lambda +1))</span>-packing. If the <span>((v,k+1,lambda +1))</span>-packing is a <span>((v,k+1,lambda +1))</span>-BIBD, then this nesting is said to be perfect. We show that given any positive integers <i>k</i> and <span>(lambda )</span>, if <span>(kge 2lambda +2)</span>, then for any sufficiently large <i>v</i>, every <span>((v,k,lambda ))</span>-BIBD can be nested into a <span>((v,k+1,lambda +1))</span>-packing; and if <span>(k=2lambda +1)</span>, then for any sufficiently large <i>v</i> satisfying <span>(v equiv 1 pmod {2k})</span>, there exists a <span>((v,k,lambda ))</span>-BIBD having a perfect nesting. Banff difference families (BDF), as a special kind of difference families (DF), can be used to generate nested BIBDs. We show that if <i>G</i> is a finite abelian group with a large size whose number of order 2 elements is no more than a given constant, and <span>(kge 2lambda +2)</span>, then one can obtain a <span>((G,k,lambda ))</span>-BDF by taking any <span>((G,k,lambda ))</span>-DF and then replacing each of its base blocks by a suitable translation. This is a Novák-like theorem. The generalized Novák’s conjecture states that given any positive integers <i>k</i> and <span>(lambda )</span> with <span>(kge lambda +1)</span>, there exists an integer <span>(v_0)</span> such that, for any cyclic <span>((v,k,lambda ))</span>-BIBD with <span>(vge v_0)</span>, it is always possible to choose one block from each block orbit so that the chosen blocks are pairwise disjoint. We confirm this conjecture for every <span>(kge lambda +2)</span>. Most of the theorems in this paper are based on a recent result presented by Delcourt and Postle on the asymptotic existence of an A-perfect matching of a bipartite hypergraph.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143371556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can we beat three halves lower bound? (Im)possibility of reducing communication cost for garbled circuits","authors":"Chunghun Baek, Taechan Kim","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01577-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01577-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Recent improvements to garbled circuits are mainly focused on reducing their size. The state-of-the-art construction of Rosulek and Roy (Crypto 2021) requires <span>(1.5kappa )</span> bits for garbling AND gates in the free-XOR setting. This is below the previously proven lower bound <span>(2kappa )</span> in the linear garbling model of Zahur, Rosulek, and Evans (Eurocrypt 2015). Whether their construction is optimal in a more inclusive model than the linear garbling model still remains open. This paper begins by providing a comprehensive model for a large class of practical garbling schemes and proves the lower bound for the size of the garbled AND gates in our model. We show that garbled AND gates require at least <span>(1.5kappa )</span> bits in our new model with the free-XOR setting. It is remarkable to see that the construction by Rosulek and Roy is already optimal despite the fact that our model possibly captures any potential extension of their construction.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143371606","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mathieu Degré, Patrick Derbez, Lucie Lahaye, André Schrottenloher
{"title":"New models for the cryptanalysis of ASCON","authors":"Mathieu Degré, Patrick Derbez, Lucie Lahaye, André Schrottenloher","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01572-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01572-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper focuses on the cryptanalysis of the ASCON family using automatic tools. We analyze two different problems with the goal to obtain new modelings, both simpler and less computationally heavy than previous works (all our models require only a small amount of code and run on regular desktop computers). The first problem is the search for Meet-in-the-middle attacks on reduced-round ASCON–XOF. Starting from the MILP modeling of Qin et al. (Meet-in-the-middle preimage attacks on sponge-based hashing. In: EUROCRYPT (4). Lecture notes in computer science, vol 14007. Springer, pp. 158–188, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30634-1_6), we rephrase the problem in SAT, which accelerates significantly the solving time and removes the need for the “weak diffusion structure” heuristic. This allows us to reduce the memory complexity of Qin et al.’s attacks and to prove some optimality results. The second problem is the search for lower bounds on the probability of differential characteristics for the ASCON permutation. We introduce a lossy MILP encoding of the propagation rules based on the Hamming weight, in order to find quickly lower bounds which are comparable to the state of the art. We find a small improvement over the existing bound on 7 rounds.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143371604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"New results on non-disjoint and classical strong external difference families","authors":"Sophie Huczynska, Sophie Hume","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01566-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01566-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Classical strong external difference families (SEDFs) are much-studied combinatorial structures motivated by information security applications; it is conjectured that only one classical abelian SEDF exists with more than two sets. Recently, non-disjoint SEDFs were introduced; it was shown that families of these exist with arbitrarily many sets. We present constructions for both classical and non-disjoint SEDFs, which encompass all known non-cyclotomic examples for either type (plus many new examples) using a sequence-based framework. Moreover, we introduce a range of new external difference structures (allowing set-sizes to vary, and sets to be replaced by multisets) in both the classical and non-disjoint case, and show how these may be applied to various communications applications.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143125228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A new automatic framework for searching rotational-XOR differential characteristics in ARX ciphers","authors":"Yuhan Zhang, Lei Zhang, Yafei Zheng, Wenling Wu","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01571-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01571-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, a security evaluation framework for ARX ciphers, using modular addition as non-linear component, against rotational-XOR differential cryptanalysis is proposed. We first model all the possible propagations for rotational-XOR difference and rotational-XOR differential probability by some conjunctive normal form clauses. Then, acceleration techniques of automatic search are presented to derive better results and improve the efficiency. Our framework is successfully applied to SPECK, and we have identified rotational-XOR differential characteristics that cover more rounds than those previously reported. In particular, we present 17-round, 17-round and 24-round rotational-XOR differential characteristics for SPECK64/128, SPECK96/144 and SPECK128/256, whereas the previously longest characteristics cover 13, 13 and 13 rounds, respectively. For CHAM64/128, a 16-round characteristic with higher probability is proposed, while 17-round and 18-round rotational-XOR differential characteristics are provided for the first time. Furthermore, we apply rotational-XOR cryptanalysis on SPARX and Ballet for the first time, obtaining a 15-round rotational-XOR characteristic for SPARX64/128 and a 9-round characteristic for Ballet128/256.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"2672 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143125241","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Efficient generation of odd order de Bruijn sequence with the same complement and reverse sequences","authors":"Zuling Chang, Qiang Wang","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01580-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01580-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Experimental results show that, when the order <i>n</i> is odd, there are de Bruijn sequences such that the corresponding complement sequence and the reverse sequence are the same. In this paper, we propose one efficient method to generate such de Bruijn sequences. This solves an open problem asked by Fredricksen forty years ago for showing the existence of such de Bruijn sequences when the odd order <span>(n >1)</span>. Moreover, we refine a characterization of de Bruijn sequences with the same complement and reverse sequences and study the number of these de Bruijn sequences, as well as the distribution of de Bruijn sequences of the maximum linear complexity.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"33 4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143072632","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kirpa Garg, Sartaj Ul Hasan, Constanza Riera, Pantelimon Stănică
{"title":"The revised boomerang connectivity tables and their connection to the difference distribution table","authors":"Kirpa Garg, Sartaj Ul Hasan, Constanza Riera, Pantelimon Stănică","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01582-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01582-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>It is well-known that functions over finite fields play a crucial role in designing substitution boxes (S-boxes) in modern block ciphers. In order to analyze the security of an S-box, recently, three new tables have been introduced: the Extended Boomerang Connectivity Table (EBCT), the Lower Boomerang Connectivity Table (LBCT), and the Upper Boomerang Connectivity Table (UBCT). In fact, these tables offer improved methods over the usual Boomerang Connectivity Table (BCT) for analyzing the security of S-boxes against boomerang-style attacks. Here, we put in context these new EBCT, LBCT, and UBCT concepts by connecting them to the DDT for a differentially <span>(delta )</span>-uniform function and also determine the EBCT, LBCT, and UBCT entries of three classes of differentially 4-uniform power permutations, namely, Gold, Kasami and Bracken–Leander. We also determine the Double Boomerang Connectivity Table (DBCT) entries of the Gold function. As byproducts of our approach, we obtain some previously published results quite easily.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143072629","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Improved Side Channel Attacks on TRIVIUM, GRAIN-128-AEAD, ACORN-128 v3 and ASCON-128a","authors":"Soumya Sahoo, Raghavendra Patil, Sandip Kumar Mondal, Santanu Sarkar, Chester Rebeiro","doi":"10.1007/s10623-025-01579-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10623-025-01579-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Side Channel Attacks (SCA) exploit physical information leakage from devices performing cryptographic operations, posing significant security threats. While SCA has been extensively studied in the context of block ciphers, similar analyses on stream ciphers and constructions like authenticated encryption are less explored. In this paper, we present a novel enhancement to existing SCA techniques based on the hamming weight model for stream ciphers. We have identified critical oversights in previous SCA attack models, allowing us to introduce additional inequalities that enhance the model’s effectiveness. For TRIVIUM and GRAIN-128-AEAD, we demonstrate that a practical state recovery attack can be achieved in significantly less time than existing attacks on the HW/32 model. Furthermore, we show that our improved model is capable of handling the HW/64 model and can recover the state even with noisy traces within a few hours. Additionally, we extend our model to the authenticated encryption schemes ACORN-128 v3 and ASCON-128a, demonstrating its broader applicability.</p>","PeriodicalId":11130,"journal":{"name":"Designs, Codes and Cryptography","volume":"50 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143072630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"数学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}