Development of a hash algorithm based on cellular automata and chaos theory

Information security, reliability of data transfer are today an important component of the globalization of information technology. Therefore, the proposed work is devoted to highlighting the results of the design and development of a hacking-resistant algorithm to ensure the integrity of information transfer via digital technology and computer engineering. To solve such problems, cryptographic hashing functions are used. In particular, elements of deterministic Chaos were introduced into the developed cyclic hashing algorithm. The investigation analyzes in detail the strengths and weaknesses of known hashing algorithms. They are shown to have disadvantages. The main ones are a large number of matches (Hamming (x, y) and the presence of a weak avalanche effect, which lead to a significant decrease in the reliability of the algorithm for hacking. The designed hashing algorithm uses an iterative Merkley-Damgard structure, augmented by the input message to a length multiple of 512 bits. Processing in blocks of 128-bit uses cellular automata with mixed rules of 30, 105 and 90, 150 and takes into account the dependence of the generation of the initial vector on the incoming message. This allows half of the 10,000 pairs of arbitrary messages to have an inverse Hamming distance of 0 to 2. The proposed algorithm is four times slower than the well-known family of "secure hash algorithms." However, computation speed is not a critical requirement for a hash function. Decreasing the sensitivity to the avalanche effect allows the generation time to be approximately halved. Optimization of the algorithm, as well as its testing was carried out using new technologies of the Java programming language (version 15). Suggestions and recommendations for improving this approach to data hashing are given also