We revisit the double-pipe construction introduced by Lucks at Asiacrypt 2005. Lucks originally studied the construction for iterated hash functions and showed that the approach is effective in improving security against various types of collision and (second-)preimage attacks. Instead, in this paper we apply the construction to the secret-key setting, where the underlying FIL (fixed-input-length) compression function is equipped with a dedicated key input. We make some adjustments to Lucks' original design so that now the new mode works with a single key and operates as a domain extension of MACs (message authentication codes). Though more than twice as slow as the Merkle-Damgård construction, the double-piped mode enjoys security strengthened beyond the birthday bound. More specifically, when iterating an FIL-MAC whose output size is n-bit, the new double-piped mode yields an AIL-(arbitrary-input-length-)MAC with security up to O(2n) query complexity. This bound contrasts sharply with the birthday bound of O(2n/2), which was the best MAC security accomplished by earlier constructions.

Password-based authenticated key exchange protocols are more convenient and practical, since users employ human-memorable passwords that are simpler to remember than cryptographic secret keys or public/private keys. Abdalla, Fouque, and Pointcheval proposed the password-based authenticated key exchange protocol in a 3-party model (GPAKE) in which clients trying to establish a secret do not share a password between themselves but only with a trusted server. On the other hand, Canetti presented a general framework, which is called universally composable (UC) framework, for representing cryptographic protocols and analyzing their security. In this framework, the security of protocols is maintained under a general protocol composition operation called universal composition. Canetti also proved a UC composition theorem, which states that the definition of UC-security achieves the goal of concurrent general composition. A server must manage all the passwords of clients when the 3-party password-based authenticated key exchange protocols are realized in large-scale networks. In order to resolve this problem, we propose a hierarchical hybrid authenticated key exchange protocol (H2AKE). In H2AKE, forwarding servers are located between each client and a distribution server, and the distribution server sends the client an authentication key via the forwarding servers. In H2AKE, public/private keys are used between servers, while passwords are also used between clients and forwarding servers. Thus, in H2AKE, the load on the distribution server can be distributed to the forwarding servers concerning password management. In this paper, we define hierarchical hybrid authenticated key exchange functionality. H2AKE is the universal form of the hierarchical (hybrid) authenticated key exchange protocol, which includes a 3-party model, and it has the characteristic that the construction of the protocol can flexibly change according to the situation. We also prove that H2AKE is secure in the UC framework with the security-preserving composition property.

SOBER-128 is a stream cipher designed by Rose and Hawkes in 2003. It can be also used for generating Message Authentication Codes (MACs) and an authenticated encryption. The developers claimed that it is difficult to forge MACs generated by both functions of SOBER-128, though, the security assumption in the proposal paper is not realistic in some instances. In this paper, we examine the security of these message authentication mechanisms of SOBER-128 under security channel model. As a result, we show that both a MAC generation and an authenticated encryption are vulnerable against differential cryptanalysis. The success probabilities of the MAC forgery attack are estimated at 2-6 and 2-27 respectively. In addition, we show that some secret bits are revealed if a key is used many times.

In this letter, we propose a fast modular reduction method over Euclidean rings, which is a generalization of Barrett's reduction algorithm over the ring of integers. As an application, we construct new universal hash function families whose operations are modular arithmetic over a Euclidean ring, which can be any of three rings, the ring of integers, the ring of Gauss integers and the ring of Eisenstein integers. The implementation of these families is efficient by using our method.

OMAC is a provably secure MAC scheme proposed by Iwata and Kurosawa. NIST currently intends to specify OMAC as the modes recommendation. In August 2003, Mitchell published a note "On the security of XCBC, TMAC and OMAC" to propose a new variant of OMAC. We call it OMAC1". In this paper, we prove that OMAC1" is less secure than the original OMAC. We show a security gap between them. As a result, we obtain a negative answer to Mitchell's open question--OMAC1" is not provably secure even if the underlying block cipher is a PRP. Further, we point out limitations of discussion in [16].

NMAC is a function for message authentication based on cryptographic hash functions such as SHA. It is shown to be a secure message authentication code if its compression function with fixed input length is a secure message authentication code and its iterated hash function with variable input length constructed with the compression function is weakly collision resistant. In this article, two results are shown on the strength of the weak collision resistance of the iterated hash function in NMAC. First, it is shown that the weak collision resistance of the iterated hash function in NMAC is not implied by the pseudorandomness of its compression function even if the MD-strengthening is assumed. Second, the weak collision resistance of the iterated hash function in NMAC implies the collision resistance of its compression function if the compression function is pseudorandom.

This paper shows an improvement of square hash function family proposed by Etzel et al. In the new variants, the size of keys is much shorter while the collision probability is slightly larger. Most of the main techniques used to optimize the original square hash functions work on our variants as well. The proposed algorithms are applicable to fast and secure message authentication.