The Strict Avalanche Criterion (SAC) is a measure of both confusion and diffusion, which are key properties of a cryptographic hash function. This work provides a working definition of the SAC, describes an experimental methodology that can be used to statistically evaluate whether a cryptographic hash meets the SAC, and uses this to investigate the degree to which compression function of the SHA-1 hash meets the SAC. The results ( @math ) are heartening: SHA-1 closely tracks the SAC after the first 24 rounds, and demonstrates excellent properties of confusion and diffusion throughout.
It is worth noting that the original definition, as per Webster & Tavares @cite_21 , is slightly ambiguous. They state that the probability that each bit in @math is equal to 1 should over the set of all possible plaintext vectors @math and @math ''; however, they also state that to satisfy the strict avalanche criterion, every element must have a value '' (emphasis mine). Under Lloyd's interpretation, the SAC is only satisfied when an element changes with a probability of precisely 0.5. This is an unnecessarily binary criterion, as it seems to be more useful (and more in line with the original definition) to understand how far a particular sample from the SAC. Therefore, this paper regards the SAC as a continuum but takes Lloyd's formulation as the definition of what it means to meet'' the SAC.
@cite_21
2231898687 2000931246 2056986231 2964090757
The strict avalanche criterion was introduced by Webster and Tavares [3] in order to combine the ideas of completeness and the avalanche effect. A cryptographic transformation is complete if each output bit depends on all the input bits, and it exhibits the avalanche effect if an average of one half of the output bits change whenever a single input bit is complemented. To fulfil the strict avalanche criterion, each output bit should change with probability one half whenever a single input bit is complemented. This means, in particular, that there is no good lower order (fewer bits) approximation to the function. This is clearly a desirable cryptographic property since such an approximation would enable a corresponding reduction in the amount of work needed for an exhaustive search. Let f be a random Boolean formula that is an instance of 3-SAT. We consider the problem of computing the least real number k such that if the ratio of the number of clauses over the number of variables of f strictly exceeds k , then f is almost certainly unsatisfiable. By a well-known and more or less straightforward argument, it can be shown that kF5.191. This upper bound was improved by to 4.758 by first providing new improved bounds for the occupancy problem. There is strong experimental evidence that the value of k is around 4.2. In this work, we define, in terms of the random formula f, a decreasing sequence of random variables such that, if the expected value of any one of them converges to zero, then f is almost certainly unsatisfiable. By letting the expected value of the first term of the sequence converge to zero, we obtain, by simple and elementary computations, an upper bound for k equal to 4.667. From the expected value of the second term of the sequence, we get the value 4.601q . In general, by letting the U This work was performed while the first author was visiting the School of Computer Science, Carleton Ž University, and was partially supported by NSERC Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council . of Canada , and by a grant from the University of Patras for sabbatical leaves. The second and third Ž authors were supported in part by grants from NSERC Natural Sciences and Engineering Research . Council of Canada . During the last stages of this research, the first and last authors were also partially Ž . supported by EU ESPRIT Long-Term Research Project ALCOM-IT Project No. 20244 . †An extended abstract of this paper was published in the Proceedings of the Fourth Annual European Ž Symposium on Algorithms, ESA’96, September 25]27, 1996, Barcelona, Spain Springer-Verlag, LNCS, . pp. 27]38 . That extended abstract was coauthored by the first three authors of the present paper. Correspondence to: L. M. Kirousis Q 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CCC 1042-9832r98r030253-17 253 Let P be a Poisson process of intensity one in a square S n of area n. We construct a random geometric graph G n , k by joining each point of P to its k ≡ k(n) nearest neighbours. Recently, Xue and Kumar proved that if k ≤ 0.074 log n then the probability that G n , k is connected tends to 0 as n → ∞ while, if k ≥ 5.1774 log n, then the probability that G n , k is connected tends to 1 as n → ∞. They conjectured that the threshold for connectivity is k = (1 + o(1)) log n. In this paper we improve these lower and upper bounds to 0.3043 log n and 0.5139 log n, respectively, disproving this conjecture. We also establish lower and upper bounds of 0.7209 log n and 0.9967 log n for the directed version of this problem. A related question concerns coverage. With G n , k as above, we surround each vertex by the smallest (closed) disc containing its k nearest neighbours. We prove that if k ≤ 0.7209 log n then the probability that these discs cover S n tends to 0 as n → ∞ while, if k > 0.9967 log n, then the probability that the discs cover S n tends to 1 as n → ∞. Let T = (T*, T(Delta)) he a spherical latin bitrade. With each a = (a(1), a(2), a(3)) is an element of T* associate a set of linear equations Eq(T, a) of the form b(1) + b(2) = b(3), where b = (b(1), b(2), b(3)) runs through T* a . Assume a(1) = 0 = a(2) and a(3) = 1. Then Eq(T, a) has in rational numbers a unique solution b(i) = (b) over bar (i). Suppose that (b) over bar (i) not equal (c) over bar (i) for all b, c is an element of T* such that (b) over bar (i) not equal c(i) and i is an element of 1, 2, 3 . We prove that then T(Delta) can be interpreted as a dissection of an equilateral triangle. We also consider group modifications of latin bitrades and show that the methods for generating the dissections can be used for a proof that T* can be embedded into the operational table of a finite abelian group, for every spherical latin bitrade T. (C) 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Combin Designs 18: 1-24, 2010