A2.9

Coding and Cryptography
Part II, 2002

(i) Explain the idea of public key cryptography. Give an example of a public key system, explaining how it works.

(ii) What is a general feedback register of length dd with initial fill (X0,,Xd1)\left(X_{0}, \ldots, X_{d-1}\right) ? What is the maximal period of such a register, and why? What does it mean for such a register to be linear?

Describe and justify the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm for breaking a cypher stream arising from a general linear feedback register of unknown length.

Use the Berlekamp-Massey algorithm to find a linear recurrence in F2\mathbb{F}_{2} with first eight terms 1,1,0,0,1,0,1,11,1,0,0,1,0,1,1.