Invertible universal hashing and the TET encryption mode

Abstract

This work describes a mode of operation, TET, that turns a regular block cipher into a length-preserving enciphering scheme for messages of (almost) arbitrary length. When using an n-bit block cipher, the resulting scheme can handle input of any bit-length between n and 2n and associated data of arbitrary length. The mode TET is a concrete instantiation of the generic mode of operation that was proposed by Naor and Reingold, extended to handle tweaks and inputs of arbitrary bit length. The main technical tool is a construction of invertible "universal hashing" on wide blocks, which is as efficient to compute and invert as polynomial-evaluation hash. © International Association for Cryptologic Research 2007.