Practical implementation and analysis of hyper-encryption

Abstract

The security of modern cryptographic schemes relies on limits on computational power and assumptions about the difficulty of certain mathematical problems, such as integer factorization. This thesis describes hyper-encryption in the limited access model, a system that provides perfect secrecy and authentication against an adversary who possesses unbounded computational power, but who is limited in the ability to eavesdrop on more than a fraction of computers in a large network, such as the Internet. This thesis also presents an implementation of hyper-encryption in the limited access model, discusses areas where the theoretical system differs from the practical implementation, and analyzes their impact on the security of the system.