Generation of random keys for cryptographic systems

Abstract

Military and government institutions need security services for storing and exchanging classified information among them. Security of such information is important for independence of the State. At present, cryptography provides a lot of methods for information security. A one-time pad cipher may be used to ensure perfect (unconditional) security. There are many ciphers and other cryptographic transformations, which are not perfect, but ensure conditional security adequate to needs. All cryptosystems require keys and other crypto materials. These keys should satisfy numerous conditions. The basic is randomness. One of the best sources of random bit sequences used in the production of keys for special cryptosystems is a hardware generator. Now we have an electronic device, where it is possible to generate binary random sequences with the potential output rate of 100 Mbit/s. It gives us the capability of building an efficient key generation equipment for the cryptosystems to rely on the one-time pad cipher, where we need very long keys and for those based on symmetric or asymmetric transformations where many relatively short keys are needed.

Cryptographic Applications of the Duplex Construction

“…In a key wrapping scheme a payload key of arbitrary length is wrapped with a key-encrypting key. Key wrapping is very important in the key management systems [9]. It helps to protect the secrecy and integrity of cryptographic keys in transport or storage.…”

“…Military Communication Institute (MCI) developed a family of hardware random bit generators, the first in the nineties. The generators can generate random sequences with an output rate 115.2kbit/s, 8M bit/s up to 100M bit/s and they were certified by the Polish national security authority according to "The Protection of Classified Information Act" and can be used in cryptographic systems up to "TOP SECRET" level [9], [10]. As a scientific tool the SGCL-100M generator (the generator with an output rate 100M bit/s) produced by MCI can be used in advanced research in many fields of science and technology.…”