Evaluation and monitoring of free running oscillators serving as source of randomness
Allini EN, Skórski M, Petura O, Bernard F, Laban M, Fischer V. 2018. Evaluation and monitoring of free running oscillators serving as source of randomness. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems. 2018(3), 214–242.
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Author
Allini, Elie Noumon;
Skórski, MaciejISTA;
Petura, Oto;
Bernard, Florent;
Laban, Marek;
Fischer, Viktor
Department
Abstract
In this paper, we evaluate clock signals generated in ring oscillators and self-timed rings and the way their jitter can be transformed into random numbers. We show that counting the periods of the jittery clock signal produces random numbers of significantly better quality than the methods in which the jittery signal is simply sampled (the case in almost all current methods). Moreover, we use the counter values to characterize and continuously monitor the source of randomness. However, instead of using the widely used statistical variance, we propose to use Allan variance to do so. There are two main advantages: Allan variance is insensitive to low frequency noises such as flicker noise that are known to be autocorrelated and significantly less circuitry is required for its computation than that used to compute commonly used variance. We also show that it is essential to use a differential principle of randomness extraction from the jitter based on the use of two identical oscillators to avoid autocorrelations originating from external and internal global jitter sources and that this fact is valid for both kinds of rings. Last but not least, we propose a method of statistical testing based on high order Markov model to show the reduced dependencies when the proposed randomness extraction is applied.
Publishing Year
Date Published
2018-01-01
Journal Title
IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems
Volume
2018
Issue
3
Page
214-242
eISSN
IST-REx-ID
Cite this
Allini EN, Skórski M, Petura O, Bernard F, Laban M, Fischer V. Evaluation and monitoring of free running oscillators serving as source of randomness. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems. 2018;2018(3):214-242. doi:10.13154/tches.v2018.i3.214-242
Allini, E. N., Skórski, M., Petura, O., Bernard, F., Laban, M., & Fischer, V. (2018). Evaluation and monitoring of free running oscillators serving as source of randomness. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems. International Association for Cryptologic Research. https://doi.org/10.13154/tches.v2018.i3.214-242
Allini, Elie Noumon, Maciej Skórski, Oto Petura, Florent Bernard, Marek Laban, and Viktor Fischer. “Evaluation and Monitoring of Free Running Oscillators Serving as Source of Randomness.” IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems. International Association for Cryptologic Research, 2018. https://doi.org/10.13154/tches.v2018.i3.214-242.
E. N. Allini, M. Skórski, O. Petura, F. Bernard, M. Laban, and V. Fischer, “Evaluation and monitoring of free running oscillators serving as source of randomness,” IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, vol. 2018, no. 3. International Association for Cryptologic Research, pp. 214–242, 2018.
Allini EN, Skórski M, Petura O, Bernard F, Laban M, Fischer V. 2018. Evaluation and monitoring of free running oscillators serving as source of randomness. IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems. 2018(3), 214–242.
Allini, Elie Noumon, et al. “Evaluation and Monitoring of Free Running Oscillators Serving as Source of Randomness.” IACR Transactions on Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems, vol. 2018, no. 3, International Association for Cryptologic Research, 2018, pp. 214–42, doi:10.13154/tches.v2018.i3.214-242.
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