SOBER-128 is a synchronous stream cipher

Stream cipher

In cryptography, a stream cipher is a symmetric key cipher where plaintext digits are combined with a pseudorandom cipher digit stream . In a stream cipher the plaintext digits are encrypted one at a time, and the transformation of successive digits varies during the encryption...

 designed by Hawkes and Rose (2003) and is a member of the SOBER family of cipher

Cipher

In cryptography, a cipher is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption — a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is encipherment. In non-technical usage, a “cipher” is the same thing as a “code”; however, the concepts...

s. SOBER-128 was also designed to provide MAC

Message authentication code

In cryptography, a message authentication code is a short piece of information used to authenticate a message.A MAC algorithm, sometimes called a keyed hash function, accepts as input a secret key and an arbitrary-length message to be authenticated, and outputs a MAC...

 (Message authentication code) functionality.

Watanabe and Furuya (2004) showed a weakness in the MAC generation of SOBER-128 which means an attack could forge a message with probability 2^-6. MAC functionality was deleted by Qualcomm from SOBER-128 reference code.

SOBER-128 takes a key

Key (cryptography)

In cryptography, a key is a piece of information that determines the functional output of a cryptographic algorithm or cipher. Without a key, the algorithm would produce no useful result. In encryption, a key specifies the particular transformation of plaintext into ciphertext, or vice versa...

up to 128-bits in length.

External links

• SOBER 128 page at Qualcomm Open Source