In 2015, Carlet and Tang [Des. Codes Cryptogr. 76(3): 571-587, 2015] proposed a concept called enhanced Boolean functions and a class of such kind of functions on odd number of variables was constructed. They proved that the constructed functions in this class have optimal algebraic immunity if the numbers of variables are a power of 2 plus 1 and at least sub-optimal algebraic immunity otherwise. In addition, an open problem that if there are enhanced Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity and maximal algebraic degree n-1 on odd variables n≠2k+1 was proposed. In this letter, we give a negative answer to the open problem, that is, we prove that there is no enhanced Boolean function on odd n≠2k+1 variables with optimal algebraic immunity and maximal algebraic degree n-1.

Semi-bent functions have important applications in cryptography and coding theory. 2-rotation symmetric semi-bent functions are a class of semi-bent functions with the simplicity for efficient computation because of their invariance under 2-cyclic shift. However, no construction of 2-rotation symmetric semi-bent functions with algebraic degree bigger than 2 has been presented in the literature. In this paper, we introduce four classes of 2m-variable 2-rotation symmetric semi-bent functions including balanced ones. Two classes of 2-rotation symmetric semi-bent functions have algebraic degree from 3 to m for odd m≥3, and the other two classes have algebraic degree from 3 to m/2 for even m≥6 with m/2 being odd.

Boolean functions and vectorial Boolean functions are the most important components of stream ciphers. Their cryptographic properties are crucial to the security of the underlying ciphers. And how to construct such functions with good cryptographic properties is a nice problem that worth to be investigated. In this paper, using two small nonlinear functions with t-1 resiliency, we provide a method on constructing t-resilient n variables Boolean functions with strictly almost optimal nonlinearity >2n-1-2n/2 and optimal algebraic degree n-t-1. Based on the method, we give another construction so that a large class of resilient vectorial Boolean functions can be obtained. It is shown that the vectorial Boolean functions also have strictly almost optimal nonlinearity and optimal algebraic degree.

Boolean functions used in the filter model of stream ciphers should have balancedness, large nonlinearity, optimal algebraic immunity and high algebraic degree. Besides, one more criterion called strict avalanche criterion (SAC) can be also considered. During the last fifteen years, much work has been done to construct balanced Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity. However, none of them has the SAC property. In this paper, we first present a construction of balanced Boolean functions with SAC property by a slight modification of a known method for constructing Boolean functions with SAC property and consider the cryptographic properties of the constructed functions. Then we propose an infinite class of balanced functions with optimal algebraic immunity and SAC property in odd number of variables. This is the first time that such kind of functions have been constructed. The algebraic degree and nonlinearity of the functions in this class are also determined.

Rotation symmetric Boolean functions which are invariant under the action of cyclic group have been used in many different cryptosystems. This paper presents a new construction of balanced odd-variable rotation symmetric Boolean functions with optimum algebraic immunity. It is checked that, at least for some small variables, such functions have very good behavior against fast algebraic attacks. Compared with some known rotation symmetric Boolean functions with optimum algebraic immunity, the new construction has really better nonlinearity. Further, the algebraic degree of the constructed functions is also high enough.

In recent years, algebraic attacks and fast algebraic attacks have received a lot of attention in the cryptographic community. There are three Boolean functions achieving optimal algebraic immunity based on primitive element of F2n. The support of Boolean functions in [1]-[3] have the same parameter s, which makes us have a large number of Boolean functions with good properties. However, we prove that the Boolean functions are affine equivalence when s takes different values.

We propose a recursive algorithm to reduce the computational complexity of the r-order nonlinearity of n-variable Boolean functions. Applying the algorithm and using the sufficient and necessary condition put forward by [1] to cut the vast majority of useless search branches, we show that the covering radius of the Reed-Muller Code R(3, 7) in R(5, 7) is 20.

It is known that correlation-immune (CI) Boolean functions used in the framework of side channel attacks need to have low Hamming weights. In this letter, we determine all unknown values of the minimum Hamming weights of d-CI Boolean functions in n variables, for d ≤ 5 and n ≤ 13.

Boolean functions used in stream ciphers and block ciphers should have high second-order nonlinearity to resist several known attacks and some potential attacks which may exist but are not yet efficient and might be improved in the future. The second-order nonlinearity of Boolean functions also plays an important role in coding theory, since its maximal value equals the covering radius of the second-order Reed-Muller code. But it is an extremely hard task to calculate and even to bound the second-order nonlinearity of Boolean functions. In this paper, we present a lower bound on the second-order nonlinearity of the generalized Maiorana-McFarland Boolean functions. As applications of our bound, we provide more simpler and direct proofs for two known lower bounds on the second-order nonlinearity of functions in the class of Maiorana-McFarland bent functions. We also derive a lower bound on the second-order nonlinearity of the functions which were conjectured bent by Canteaut and whose bentness was proved by Leander, by further employing our bound.

This paper improves the family size of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) complementary sequences with binary inputs. By employing new mathematical description: B-type-2 of 4q-QAM constellation (integer q ≥ 2), a new construction yielding 4q-QAM complementary sequences (CSs) with length 2m (integer m ≥ 2) is developed. The resultant sequences include the known QAM CSs with binary inputs as special cases, and the family sizes of new sequences are approximately 22·2q-4q-1(22·2q-3-1) times as many as the known. Also, both new sequences and the known have the same the peak envelope power (PEP) upper bounds, when they are used in an orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing communication system.

We present an explicit construction of a MAJn-2 °MAJn-2 circuit computing MAJn for every odd n≥7. This gives a partial solution to an open problem by Kulikov and Podolskii (Proc. of STACS 2017, Article No.49).

As a with-carry analog (based on modular arithmetic) of the usual Walsh-Hadamard transform (WHT), arithmetic Walsh transform (AWT) has been used to obtain analogs of some properties of Boolean functions which are important in the design and analysis of cryptosystems. The existence of nonzero linear structure of Boolean functions is an important criterion to measure the weakness of these functions in their cryptographic applications. In this paper, we find more analogs of linear structures of Boolean functions from AWT. For some classes of n-variable Boolean functions f, we find necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of an invariant linear structure and a complementary linear structure 1n of f. We abstract out a sectionally linear relationship between AWT and WHT of n-variable balanced Boolean functions f with linear structure 1n. This result show that AWT can characterize cryptographic properties of these functions as long as WHT can. In addition, for a diagonal Boolean function f, a recent result by Carlet and Klapper says that the AWT of f can be expressed in terms of the AWT of a diagonal Boolean function of algebraic degree at most 3 in a larger number of variables. We provide for the result a complete and more modular proof which works for both even and odd weights (of the parameter c in the Corollary 19 by Carlet and Klapper (DCC 73(2): 299-318, 2014).

Recent research has shown that the class of rotation symmetric Boolean functions is beneficial to cryptographics. In this paper, for an odd prime p, two sufficient conditions for p-variable rotation symmetric Boolean functions to be 1-resilient are obtained, and then several concrete constructions satisfying the conditions are presented. This is the first time that resilient rotation symmetric Boolean functions have been systematically constructed. In particular, we construct a class of 2-resilient rotation symmetric Boolean functions when p=2m+1 for m ≥ 4. Moreover, several classes of 1-order correlation immune rotation symmetric Boolean functions are also got.

To resist algebraic and fast algebraic attacks, Boolean functions used in stream ciphers should have optimal algebraic immunity and good fast algebraic immunity. One challenge of cryptographic Boolean functions is to determine their ability to resist fast algebraic attacks, which can be measured by their fast algebraic immunities. In this letter, we determine the exact values of fast algebraic immunity of the majority function of 2m and 2m+1 variables. This is the first time that the exact values of the fast algebraic immunity of an infinite class of symmetric Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity are determined.

Since 2008, three different classes of Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity have been proposed by Carlet and Feng [2], Wang et al.[8] and Chen et al.[3]. We call them C-F functions, W-P-K-X functions and C-T-Q functions for short. In this paper, we propose three affine equivalent classes of Boolean functions containing C-F functions, W-P-K-X functions and C-T-Q functions as a subclass, respectively. Based on the affine equivalence relation, we construct more classes of Boolean functions with optimal algebraic immunity. Moreover, we deduce a new lower bound on the nonlinearity of C-F functions, which is better than all the known ones.

Rotation symmetric Boolean functions (RSBFs) that are invariant under circular translation of indices have been used as components of different cryptosystems. In this paper, odd-variable balanced RSBFs with maximum algebraic immunity (AI) are investigated. We provide a construction of n-variable (n=2k+1 odd and n ≥ 13) RSBFs with maximum AI and nonlinearity ≥ 2n-1-¥binom{n-1}{k}+2k+2k-2-k, which have nonlinearities significantly higher than the previous nonlinearity of RSBFs with maximum AI.

By investigating the properties that the offsets should satisfy, this letter presents a brief proof of general QAM Golay complementary sequences (GCSs) in Cases I-III constructions. Our aim is to provide a brief, clear, and intelligible derivation so that it is easy for the reader to understand the known Cases I-III constructions of general QAM GCSs.

The global avalanche characteristics measure the overall avalanche properties of Boolean functions, an n-variable balanced Boolean function of the sum-of-square indicator reaching σƒ=22n+2n+3 is an open problem. In this paper, we prove that there does not exist a balanced Boolean function with σƒ=22n+2n+3 for n≥4, if the hamming weight of one decomposition function belongs to the interval Q*. Some upper bounds on the order of propagation criterion of balanced Boolean functions with n (3≤n≤100) variables are given, if the number of vectors of propagation criterion is equal and less than 7·2n-3-1. Two lower bounds on the sum-of-square indicator for balanced Boolean functions with optimal autocorrelation distribution are obtained. Furthermore, the relationship between the sum-of-squares indicator and nonlinearity of balanced Boolean functions is deduced, the new nonlinearity improves the previously known nonlinearity.

In this paper, we explore possibilities and difficulties to prove super-quadratic formula size lower bounds from the following aspects. First, we consider recursive Boolean functions and prove their general formula size upper bounds. We also discuss recursive Boolean functions based on exact 2-bit functions. We show that their formula complexity are at least Ω(n2). Hence they can be candidate Boolean functions to prove super-quadratic formula size lower bounds. Next, we consider the reason of the difficulty of resolving the formula complexity of the majority function in contrast with the parity function. In particular, we discuss the structure of an optimal protocol partition for the Karchmer-Wigderson communication game.

Based on the non-standard generalized Boolean functions (GBFs) over Z4, we propose a new method to convert those functions into the 16-QAM Golay complementary sequences (CSs). The resultant 16-QAM Golay CSs have the upper bound of peak-to-mean envelope power ratio (PMEPR) as low as 2. In addition, we obtain multiple 16-QAM Golay CSs for a given quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) Golay CS.