Optimization Techniques for Solving Complex Problems

CHAPTER 9

Using Reconfigurable Computing for the Optimization of Cryptographic Algorithms

J. M. GRANADO, M. A. VEGA, J. M. SÁNCHEZ, and J. A. GÓMEZ

Universidad de Extremadura, Spain

9.1 INTRODUCTION

Cryptography is a tool used since the early days of civilization: for example, to avoid the enemy reading messages from captured emissaries. Nowadays, the Internet has made it necessary to employ cryptography to transmit information through an insecure channel. One of the first cryptography machines was Enigma, which employs rotor machines to make the encryption, early in the twentieth century. Later, with the appearance of computers, the cryptographic algorithms became more complex. Nowadays, secure algorithms such as DES, Triple-DES, and IDEA exist. Finally, with the appearance of wireless networks, new specific cryptographic algorithms have been developed to be used in these networks, such as MARS, SERPENT, RC6, or Rijndael, which has turned into the new AES standard. Besides, due to the new fast network standards, these algorithms must be very fast, and a very interesting solution is to implement them using hardware such as field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). At this point we can find works [2,11,28] in which FPGA-based implementations of IDEA, AES, and RC6 algorithms are described, respectively. We have implemented these algorithms using FPGAs, achieving very good results in ...