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SYMMETRIC KEY ENCRYPTION THROUGH DATA STRUCTURE AND BINARY-

GRAY CONVERSION

Conference Paper · January 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4430.8323

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Symmetric Key Encryption Through Data
Structure and Binary-Gray Conversion

Smita Paira, Sourabh Chandra, Sk. Safikul Alam

and Siddhartha Bhattacharyya

Abstract In the present day to day life, due to the inconvenience of travelling from
place to place, information/messages are sent through the internet. As a result it
faces a lot of obstacles. The internet security techniques consist of various provi-
sions and policies, which are adopted by the network administrator so as to prevent
and monitor the unauthorized access, modification, misuse or denial of any network
and its assets. In this paper, a new symmetric key cryptography algorithm has been
developed, based on the principles of data structure and binary-gray conversion
techniques. It has also implemented n-bit circular shift operation along with the
folding logic. The technique is highly efficient to meet the necessary shortcomings
for time and space. As a result, it provides more security against various attacks like
the Man in the Middle attacks and Brute Force attack, etc.

Keywords Cryptography

Symmetric key cryptography

Asymmetric key




cryptography Bitwise left and right circular shift Linked list Man in the middle





attacks Brute force attack Cipher text Plain text Encryption Decryption

1 Introduction

Cryptography is the art of camouflaging the plain text into the ciphered text through
some medium specially known as the ‘key’. Using the key and a series of logical
techniques, the data, over the channel, is ciphered. The resulting crypto text is
transferred through the channel and is received by the receiver. The receiver uses
the same key or a separate key to decrypt the encrypted text file. A large key, if
ciphered plays a vital role in securing the entire cryptographic system [1]. Based on

S. Paira (&)
S. Chandra
Sk.S. Alam

Department of CSE, Calcutta Institute of Technology, Howrah 711316, India
S. Bhattacharyya
Department of IT, RCCIIT, Kolkata 700015, India

© Springer India 2015 1

N.R. Shetty et al. (eds.), Emerging Research in Computing, Information,
Communication and Applications, DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-2550-8_1
2 S. Paira et al.

Fig. 1

the key distribution, cryptography has two base types, namely, Symmetric key
cryptography and Asymmetric key cryptography, as shown in Fig. 1.
Symmetric key Cryptography uses identical keys for both encryption and
decryption algorithms. As a result, it is also termed as secret key, single key, private
key and shared key [2]. It follows a series of substitution algorithms and is based on
permutation of symbols [3]. Asymmetric key cryptography uses two keys namely a
private key and a public key for encryption and decryption processes respectively.
The keys can be interchangeable i.e. if a key A encrypts the message, the key B will
decrypt it, and if the key B encrypts the message then the key A will decrypt it [4].
However, it is not essential. The symmetric key encryption technique is more
efficient than the Asymmetric counterpart in the sense that it can process large data
very swiftly [5]. It is also less intensive than the Asymmetric key algorithms.
However, the transfer of the secret key is prone to various attacks and needs higher
level of trust during the choosing, processing, distributing and storing of the key
[6]. As the Asymmetric key cryptography uses two separate keys, it is not vul-
nerable to such attacks [7]. The diagrammatic illustration is shown in Fig. 2.
The Asymmetric key cryptography has a major drawback. It is slower than the
Symmetric key cryptography algorithm [8, 9]. The Symmetric key cryptosystem, on
the other hand, is simpler [10] and requires less processing power than the
Asymmetric key cryptography algorithm. The secret key can only be used by the
authorized persons [11]. Such type of cryptography uses password authentication
logic to prove the identity of the receiver. Although the distribution and

Fig. 2
Symmetric Key Encryption Through Data Structure … 3

management of keys is difficult [12] yet it is the most commonly used, highly
reliable algorithm and requires less space compared to the Asymmetric key cryp-
tography [13, 14]. The Symmetric key cryptography is easier to understand and has
a wide range of applications like e-commerce transactions, etc.

2 Problem Statement

Here in this section, the newly proposed algorithm has been applied on a text file.
Four different logics have been implemented in this algorithm. These include the
basic binary-gray conversion technique, alternatively for each word, principle of
data structure, n-bit circular shift operation and the folding logic. A linked list has
been created which contains two information parts. One will contain the ASCII
value of the preceding character and the other will contain the position of the
succeeding character of space respectively. The list has been further ciphered by
performing pair wise swapping of the position information part. This list is then
used as the shared link. This in turn increases the integrity and authenticity of the
ciphered message. Accordingly, a small illustration based on C has been developed
and executed in the next section.

3 Underlying Algorithm

Let us consider, Bob, the sender wants to send some message to Alice, through a
text file. He writes the message “Hi Alice! Meet me at 1D/73 Shopper’s Lane.” In a
text file, named as “test1.txt” and sends it to Alice.

3.1 Input

Hi Alice! Meet me at 1D/73 Shopper’s Lane.

The process of encryption of the above plain text characters is shown in Table 1.

3.2 Space Encryption

Convert the ASCII value of the preceding character of space into its corresponding
7-bit binary form. Apply 1-bit left shift operation on the binary pattern and convert
the result into its corresponding decimal form. Fold the decimal value into a single
4 S. Paira et al.

Table 1 Encryption of the characters (other than space) using binary–gray conversion
alternatively
Character ASCII 7-bit After After gray to ASCII Respective
fetched value binary/gray binary binary value ciphered
form to gray conversion character
conversion
H 72 1001000 1101100 108 l
i 105 1101001 1011101 93 ]
A 65 1000001 1111110 126 *
l 108 1101100 1001000 72 H
i 105 1101001 1001110 78 N
c 99 1100011 1000010 66 B
e 101 1100101 1000110 70 F
! 33 0100001 0111110 62 >
M 77 1001101 1101011 107 k
e 101 1100101 1010111 87 W
e 101 1100101 1010111 87 W
t 116 1110100 1001110 78 N
m 109 1101101 1001001 73 I
e 101 1100101 1000110 70 F
a 97 1100001 1010001 81 Q
t 116 1110100 1001110 78 N
1 49 0110001 0100001 33 !
D 68 1000100 1111000 120 x
/ 47 0101111 0110101 53 5
7 55 0110111 0100101 37 %
3 51 0110011 0100010 34 “
S 83 1010011 1111010 122 z
h 104 1101000 1011100 92 \
o 111 1101111 1011000 88 X
p 112 1110000 1001000 72 H
p 112 1110000 1001000 72 H
e 101 1100101 1010111 87 W
r 114 1110010 1001011 75 K
‘ 39 0100111 0110100 52 4
s 115 1110011 1001010 74 J
L 76 1001100 1110111 119 w
a 97 1100001 1000001 65 A
n 110 1101110 1001011 75 K
e 101 1100101 1000110 70 F
. 46 0101110 0110100 52 4
Symmetric Key Encryption Through Data Structure … 5

Table 2 Encryption of space

ASCII of 7-bit After Corresponding After Folded Encoded
preceding binary 1-bit left decimal form folding value character
character form circular logic + 32
of space shift
operation
105 1101001 1010011 83 2 34 “
33 0100001 1000010 66 3 35 #
116 1110100 1101001 105 6 38 &
101 1100101 1001011 75 3 35 #
116 1110100 1101001 105 6 38 &
51 0110011 1100110 102 3 35 #
115 1110011 1100111 103 4 36 $

digit and add it to 32. Encode the space with the resultant single digit as shown in
Table 2.

3.3 Content of the Encrypted Text File

l]”*HNBF>#kWWN&IF#QN&!x5%”#z\XHHWK4J$wAKF4
The above encrypted file “test2.txt” is sent to Bob along with the ciphered key.
The key here is a linked list, which contains the ASCII value of the preceding
characters of the spaces in the original text file. The list also contains the positions
of the succeeding characters of the spaces. The list has been further ciphered by
performing pair wise swapping of the positions. This ciphered key is passed as the
shared link to the receiver over the insecure communication channel.

3.4 Ciphered Key

The generation of the ciphered key is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3
6 S. Paira et al.

Fig. 4

3.5 Decryption of Ciphered Key

Alice decrypts the ciphered key as shown in Fig. 4.

After performing pair wise swapping of the position part of the linked list, Alice
got the key to decrypt the entire crypto file sent by Bob. She then starts checking the
ASCII value of each character in the encrypted text file along with its position. If
the ASCII value matches with the ASCII in the key, then she checks the position to
be two less than the key position being sent. It both the condition are satisfied then
she simply decrypts the next character as space. Otherwise she checks for each
word and perform gray-binary, binary-gray conversions alternatively on each word.
It means the order of conversion is opposite to that of the encryption algorithm. The
characters in the ciphered text which are not present in the space positions are
decrypted as shown in Table 3 and the decryption of the space position characters is
shown in Table 4.

3.6 Content of Text File After Decryption

Hi Alice! Meet me at 1D/73 Shopper’s Lane.

The above information is stored in a text file named as “test3.txt”. Alice finally
receives the original message sent by Bob.

4 Results and Discussion

The original file and executed message before encryption (message at sender’s end)
is shown in Figs. 5 and 6 respectively.
The executed message and file after encryption (message being transmitted
through the channel) is shown in Figs. 7 and 8 respectively.
The executed message and file after decryption (message at receiver’s end) is
shown in Figs. 9 and 10 respectively.
Symmetric Key Encryption Through Data Structure … 7

Table 3 Decryption of characters, which are not in space positions of the original text file
Character ASCII 7-bit After After gray ASCII Respective
fetched value binary/gray binary to to binary value decrypted
form gray conversion character
conversion
l 108 1101100 1001000 72 H
] 93 1011101 1101001 105 i
* 126 1111110 1000001 65 A
H 72 1001000 1101100 108 l
N 78 1001110 1101001 105 i
B 66 1000010 1100011 99 c
F 70 1000110 1100101 101 e
> 62 0111110 0100001 33 !
k 107 1101011 1001101 77 M
W 87 1010111 1100101 101 e
W 87 1010111 1100101 101 e
N 78 1001110 1110100 116 t
I 73 1001001 1101101 109 m
F 70 1000110 1100101 101 e
Q 81 1010001 1100001 97 a
N 78 1001110 1110100 116 t
! 33 0100001 0110001 49 1
x 120 1111000 1000100 68 D
5 53 0110101 0101111 47 /
% 37 0100101 0110111 55 7
“ 34 0100010 0110011 51 3
z 122 1111010 1010011 83 S
\ 92 1011100 1101000 104 h
X 88 1011000 1101111 111 o
H 72 1001000 1110000 112 p
H 72 1001000 1110000 112 p
W 87 1010111 1100101 101 e
K 75 1001011 1110010 114 r
4 52 0110100 0100111 39 ‘
J 74 1001010 1110011 115 s
w 119 1110111 1001100 76 L
A 65 1000001 1100001 97 a
K 75 1001011 1101110 110 n
F 70 1000110 1100101 101 e
4 52 0110100 0101110 46 .
8 S. Paira et al.

Table 4 Decryption of characters present in space position

Matched ASCII Position (2 less than the Succeeding character of Decoded
with the key position in key) the fetched ASCII character
105 1 “ Space
33 8 # Space
116 13 & Space
101 16 # Space
116 19 & Space
51 25 # Space
115 35 $ Space

Fig. 5

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Fig. 8

Fig. 9
Symmetric Key Encryption Through Data Structure … 9

Fig. 10

5 Conclusion

Data transfer through a highly interactive networked channel, suffers from various
attacks. Security needs and its application has percolated into different areas of
computer network and communication. Cryptography is one such approach,
metamorphosed to suit the challenges and needs of today. In this paper, a new
symmetric key cryptography algorithm has been developed. It implements three
different techniques namely the conventional binary-gray/gray-binary conversion
algorithms, the n-bit circular shift operation and the folding logic. Another special
property of this algorithm is the ciphered key in terms of a linked data structure.
This ciphered shared link not only provides confidentiality but also authenticity to
the secret data. The combined effect of three logics provides efficiency to the
algorithm by ensuring protection against various unauthorised accesses.

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