A new mode of operation for block ciphers and length preserving MACs

We propose a new mode of operation, enciphered CBC, for domain extension of length-preserving functions (like block ciphers), which is a variation on the popular CBC mode of operation. Our new mode is twice slower than CBC, but has many (property-preserving) properties not enjoyed by CBC and other known modes. Most notably, it yields the first constant-rate Variable Input Length (VIL) MAC from any length preserving Fixed Input Length (FIL) MAC. This answers the question of Dodis and Puniya from Eurocrypt 2007. Further, our mode is a secure domain extender for PRFs (with basically the same security as encrypted CBC). This provides a hedge against the security of the block cipher: if the block cipher is pseudorandom, one gets a VIL-PRF, while if it is "only" unpredictable, one "at least" gets a VIL-MAC. Additionally, our mode yields a VIL random oracle (and, hence, a collision-resistant hash function) when instantiated with length-preserving random functions, or even random permutations (which can be queried from both sides). This means that one does not have to re-key the block cipher during the computation, which was critically used in most previous constructions (analyzed in the ideal cipher model).