Message Authenticator Algorithm

The Message Authenticator Algorithm (MAA) was one of the first cryptographic functions for computing a message authentication code (MAC).

History

It was designed in 1983 by Donald Davies and David Clayden at the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom) in response to a request of the UK Bankers Automated Clearing Services. The MAA was one of the first Message Authentication Code algorithms to gain widespread acceptance.

Development and standardization

The original specification of the MAA was given in a combination of natural language and tables, complemented by two implementations in C and BASIC programming languages.

The MAA was adopted by ISO in 1987 and became part of international standards ISO 8730 and ISO 8731-2 intended to secure the authenticity and integrity of banking transactions.

Attacks

Later, cryptanalysis of MAA revealed various weaknesses, including feasible brute-force attacks, existence of collision clusters, and key-recovery techniques. For this reason, MAA was withdrawn from ISO standards in 2002 but continued to be used as a prominent case study for assessing various formal methods.

Formal specifications of the MAA

The MAA has been used as a prominent case study for assessing various formal methods.

In the early 1990s, the NPL developed three formal specifications of the MAA: one in Z, one in LOTOS, and one in VDM. The VDM specification became part of the 1992 revision of the International Standard 8731-2, and three implementations were manually derived from that latter specification: C, Miranda, and Modula-2.

Other formal models of the MAA have been developed. In 2017, a complete formal specification of the MAA as a large term rewriting system was published; From this specification, implementations of the MAA in fifteen different languages have been generated automatically. In 2018, two new formal specifications of the MAA, in LOTOS and LNT, have been published.

References

Davies, Donald W. (1985). "A Message Authenticator Algorithm Suitable for a Mainframe Computer". Advances in Cryptology – Proceedings of the Workshop on the Theory and Application of Cryptographic Techniques (CRYPTO’84), Santa Barbara, CA, USA. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 196. Springer. pp. 393–400. doi:10.1007/3-540-39568-7_30.
Davies, Donald W.; Clayden, David O. (1988). The Message Authenticator Algorithm (MAA) and its Implementation (PDF) (NPL Report DITC 109/88). Teddington, Middlesex, UK: National Physical Laboratory.
International Organization for Standardization (1987). International Standard 8731-2. Approved Algorithms for Message Authentication – Part 2: Message Authenticator Algorithm (MAA) (Report). Geneva.
International Organization for Standardization (1992). International Standard 8731-2. Approved Algorithms for Message Authentication – Part 2: Message Authenticator Algorithm (MAA) (Report). Geneva.
International Organization for Standardization (1990). International Standard 8730. Requirements for Message Authentication (Wholesale) (Report). Geneva.
Preneel, Bart; van Oorschot, Paul C. (1996). On the Security of Two MAC Algorithms. Advances in Cryptology – Proceedings of the International Conference on the Theory and Application of Cryptographic Techniques (EUROCRYPT’96), Saragossa, Spain. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 1070. Springer. pp. 19–32. doi:10.1007/3-540-68339-9_3.
Preneel, Bart; van Oorschot, Paul C. (1999). "On the Security of Iterated Message Authentication Codes". IEEE Transactions on Information Theory. 45 (1): 188–199. doi:10.1109/18.746787.
Preneel, Bart; Rumen, Vincent; van Oorschot, Paul C. (1997). "Security Analysis of the Message Authenticator Algorithm (MAA) -journal=European Transactions on Telecommunications". 8 (5): 455–470. doi:10.1002/ett.4460080504. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
Rijmen, Vincent; Preneel, Bart; De Win, Erik (1996). Key Recovery and Collision Clusters for MAA (PDF). Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Security in Communication Networks (SCN’96).
Preneel, Bart (2011). "MAA". Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. pp. 741–742. doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-5906-5_591. ISBN 978-1-4419-5905-8. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
M. K. F. Lai (1991). A Formal Interpretation of the MAA Standard in Z (NPL Report DITC 184/91). Teddington, Middlesex, UK: National Physical Laboratory.
Harold B. Munster (1991). LOTOS Specification of the MAA Standard, with an Evaluation of LOTOS (PDF) (NPL Report DITC 191/91). Teddington, Middlesex, UK: National Physical Laboratory.
Graeme I. Parkin; G. O’Neill (1990). Specification of the MAA Standard in VDM (NPL Report DITC 160/90). National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex, UK.
Graeme I. Parkin; G. O’Neill (1991). Søren Prehn; W. J. Toetenel (eds.). Specification of the MAA Standard in VDM. Formal Software Development – Proceedings (Volume 1) of the 4th International Symposium of VDM Europe (VDM’91), Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 551. Springer. pp. 526–544. doi:10.1007/3-540-54834-3_31.
R. P. Lampard (1991). An Implementation of MAA from a VDM Specification (NPL Technical Memorandum DITC 50/91). Teddington, Middlesex, UK: National Physical Laboratory.
Garavel, Hubert; Marsso, Lina (2017). A Large Term Rewrite System Modelling a Pioneering Cryptographic Algorithm. Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Models for Formal Analysis of Real Systems (MARS'17), Uppsala, Sweden. Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science. Vol. 244. pp. 129–183. arXiv:1703.06573. doi:10.4204/EPTCS.244.6.
Garavel, Hubert; Marsso, Lina (2018). Comparative Study of Eight Formal Specifications of the Message Authenticator Algorithm. Proceedings of the 3nd Workshop on Models for Formal Analysis of Real Systems (MARS'18) and 6th International Workshop on Verification and Program Transformation (MARS/VPT 2018), Thessaloniki, Greece. Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science. Vol. 268. pp. 41–87. arXiv:1803.10322. doi:10.4204/EPTCS.268.2.

External links

Preneel, Bart (2011). "MAA". In van Tilborg, Henk C. A.; Jajodia, Sushil (eds.). Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security (2nd ed.). Springer. pp. 741–742. doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-5906-5_591. ISBN 978-1-4419-5905-8.
http://www.cix.co.uk/~klockstone/maa.htm
http://www.mars-workshop.org/repository/012-MAA.html

v t e Cryptographic hash functions and message authentication codes
List Comparison Known attacks
Common functions	MD5 (compromised) SHA-1 (compromised) SHA-2 SHA-3 BLAKE2
SHA-3 finalists	BLAKE Grøstl JH Skein Keccak (winner)
Other functions	BLAKE3 CubeHash ECOH FSB Fugue GOST HAS-160 HAVAL Kupyna LSH Lane MASH-1 MASH-2 MD2 MD4 MD6 MDC-2 N-hash RIPEMD RadioGatún SIMD SM3 SWIFFT Shabal Snefru Streebog Tiger VSH Whirlpool
Password hashing/ key stretching functions	Argon2 Balloon bcrypt Catena crypt LM hash Lyra2 Makwa PBKDF2 scrypt yescrypt
General purpose key derivation functions	HKDF KDF1/KDF2
MAC functions	CBC-MAC DAA GMAC HMAC NMAC OMAC/CMAC PMAC Poly1305 SipHash UMAC VMAC
Authenticated encryption modes	CCM ChaCha20-Poly1305 CWC EAX GCM IAPM OCB
Attacks	Collision attack Preimage attack Birthday attack Brute-force attack Rainbow table Side-channel attack Length extension attack
Design	Avalanche effect Hash collision Merkle–Damgård construction Sponge function HAIFA construction
Standardization	CAESAR Competition CRYPTREC NESSIE NIST hash function competition Password Hashing Competition NSA Suite B CNSA
Utilization	Hash-based cryptography Merkle tree Message authentication Proof of work Salt Pepper

v t e Cryptography
General	History of cryptography Outline of cryptography Classical cipher Cryptographic protocol Authentication protocol Cryptographic primitive Cryptanalysis Cryptocurrency Cryptosystem Cryptographic nonce Cryptovirology Hash function Cryptographic hash function Key derivation function Secure Hash Algorithms Digital signature Kleptography Key (cryptography) Key exchange Key generator Key schedule Key stretching Keygen Machines Cryptojacking malware Ransomware Random number generation Cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator (CSPRNG) Pseudorandom noise (PRN) Secure channel Insecure channel Subliminal channel Encryption Decryption End-to-end encryption Harvest now, decrypt later Information-theoretic security Plaintext Codetext Ciphertext Shared secret Trapdoor function Trusted timestamping Key-based routing Onion routing Garlic routing Kademlia Mix network
Mathematics	Cryptographic hash function Block cipher Stream cipher Symmetric-key algorithm Authenticated encryption Public-key cryptography Quantum key distribution Quantum cryptography Post-quantum cryptography Message authentication code Random numbers Steganography
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