Fuzzy-Fortuna: A fuzzified approach to generation of cryptographically secure pseudo-random numbers

Abstract

A fuzzy based adaptive algorithm for the reseeding operation of Fortuna is presented. Fortuna is a pseudo-random number generation algorithm, originally suggested by Ferguson and Schneier. The algorithm is specifically designed to be cryptographically secure from known attacks. However the described algorithm suffers from a lack of an algorithm which could adapt the rate of reseeding according to variations in the amount of truly random data being gathered from the environment at any time. The Fortuna algorithm performs the reseeding action after a fixed number of iterations. This paper presents concept as well as software implementation of a novel technique using fuzzy approach to tackle this problem. The resulting algorithm has been named fuzz-Fortuna. Fuzz-Fortuna has been tested using various techniques and has shown considerable improvement in results as compared to the ordinary Fortuna algorithm.