An Exploration of Cryptanalytic Time Memory Tradeoffs by Dr Xavier Carpent

In our first guest talk of the year, Dr Xavier Carpent presents a talk on Cryptanalytic Time Memory Tradeoffs:

In this talk, we will introduce pre-image search, a fundamental problem in cryptography, and explore some of its implications. We will look at iterated random functions and use them to construct time-memory trade-offs to answer pre-image queries.

Through relatively simple maths and some hands-on Python experiments, we will rediscover some of the techniques behind attacks such as the A5/1 GSM attack, NTLM password cracking, and a 2024 passive attack on 2.5G networks.