Theory and application of reversible cellular automata in cryptography

Abstract

The widespread use of telecommunications technologies and networks in various fields of activity has increased the concerns regarding the security and privacy of transmitted data. To address this concern, this paper proposes a different approach for constructing cryptography algorithms using cellular automata (CA). Specifically, we propose an encryption concept based on a class of one-dimensional CA with reversible rules, which offer enhanced information preservation and security. The complexity and parallel nature of CA make them highly attractive for cryptography applications. The proposed algorithm belongs to the class of symmetric key cryptosystems based on stream cipher and can be implemented using both software and hardware. To facilitate experimentation and evaluation, we present a software application that enables the testing of various combinations of reversible rules for data encryption. Experimental results prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in terms of information security and randomness.