Cellular Automata based authentication (CAA)

Current demands for secured communication have focused intensive interest on 'Authentication'. There is a great demand for low cost high-speed on-line scheme for generation of Message Authentication Code. This paper introduces a computational model built around a new class of Cellular Automata (CA) referred to as Single Attractor CA (SACA). The SACA generates efficient one way hash function that has been employed for message authentication. The model generates the Message Authentication Code (MAC) as a string of Symbols in the extension field GF(2(P)). Theory of extension field GF(2(P)) and the unique behavioural model of SACA have provided the foundation of this scheme to enhance the level of security. Cryptanalysis of the proposed scheme has established the fact that compared to other known schemes like MD5, SHA1 etc., the current scheme is more secure against all known attacks. High speed execution of the proposed scheme makes it ideally suitable for real time on-line applications. Further, the Simple, regular, modular, and cascadable structure of CA with local interconnections makes the scheme ideally suitable for VLSI implementation with throughput in the range of hundreds of Megabits per second.