CIS 5371 Cryptography

2. Perfect Secret Encryption

Encryption

Encryption
encryption key

Plaintext
decryption key

Ciphertext

Decryption
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Encryption algorithms

Encryption algorithms
Definition
An encryption scheme (Gen,Enc,Dec) over message space M is perfectly secret if for every probability distribution over M, every message mM, and every ciphertext cC for which Pr[C = c] 0: Pr[M = m | C = c] = Pr[M = m]

Convention:
We consider only probability distributions over M, C that assign non-zero probabilities to all mM and cC.
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Encryption algorithms
Lemma 1
An encryption scheme (Gen,Enc,Dec) over message space M is perfectly secret if and only if for every probability distribution over M, every message mM, and every ciphertext cC: Pr[C = c | M = m] = Pr[C = c]

Encryption algorithms

Encryption algorithms
An equivalent definition for perfect secrecy

Encryption algorithms

Encryption algorithms

Encryption algorithms
Theorem
The one time pad encryption scheme is perfectly secret.

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Limitations to perfect secrecy

Theorem
Let (Gen,Enc,Dec) be a perfectly secret encryption scheme over message space M, and let K be the key space as determined by Gen. Then |K| |M| .

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Shannons Theorem
Theorem
Let (Gen,Enc,Dec) be an encryption scheme over a message space M for which |M|= |K|=|C|. The scheme is perfectly secret if and only if:
1. Every key kK is chosen with equal probability 1/|K| by algorithm Gen. 2. For every mM and every cC there is a unique key kK such that Enck(m) outputs c

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