Cryptographic Algorithms with Data Shorter than the Encryption Key, Based on LZW and Huffman Coding

Modern, commonly used cryptosystems based on encryption keys require that the length of the stream of encrypted data is approximately the length of the key or longer. In practice, this approach unnecessarily complicates strong encryption of very short messages commonly used for example in ultra-low-power and resource-constrained wireless network sensor nodes based on microcontrollers (MCUs). In such cases, the data payload can be as short as a few bits of data while the typical length of the key is several hundred bits or more. The article proposes an idea of employing a complex of two algorithms, initially applied for data compression, acting as a standard-length encryption key algorithm to increase the transmission security of very short data sequences, even as short as one or a few bytes. In this article, we present and evaluate an approach that uses LZW and Huffman coding to achieve data transmission obfuscation and a basic level of security.

Automated summary

Modern cryptosystems often require the length of the encrypted data to be approximately the same as or longer than the encryption key. However, in resource-constrained wireless sensor nodes, the data payload can be very short while the key length is much longer. This article proposes using a combination of two data compression algorithms as a standard-length encryption key algorithm to enhance the security of short data sequences.