RFC 6229

Test Vectors for the Stream Cipher RC4
RFC 6229
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)                   J. Strombergson
Request for Comments: 6229                            SecWorks Sweden AB
Category: Informational                                     S. Josefsson
ISSN: 2070-1721                           Simon Josefsson Datakonsult AB
                                                                May 2011

                 Test Vectors for the Stream Cipher RC4

Abstract

   This document contains test vectors for the stream cipher RC4.

Status of This Memo

   This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is
   published for informational purposes.

   This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
   (IETF).  It represents the consensus of the IETF community.  It has
   received public review and has been approved for publication by the
   Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).  Not all documents
   approved by the IESG are a candidate for any level of Internet
   Standard; see Section 2 of RFC 5741.

   Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
   and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
   http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc6229.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Strombergson & Josefsson      Informational                     [Page 1]
RFC 6229         Test Vectors for the Stream Cipher RC4         May 2011

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  3
   2.  Test Vectors for RC4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  4
   3.  Security Considerations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   4.  Copying Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
   5.  References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
     5.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1.  Introduction

   The RC4 [RC4] algorithm is a widely used stream cipher.  Test vectors
   for algorithms are useful for implementers.  The RC4 cipher can use
   different key lengths.  Advances in crypto-analysis [FMcG] [MANTIN01]
   [MIRONOV] [MANTIN05] suggest that initial parts of the stream output
   need to be discarded.  This document contains several test vectors
   for different key lengths and for different offsets in the stream.

   Motivation for this document arose from the implementation of
   [RFC4345].

   The test vectors provided in this document have been collected by
   generating RC4 keystream output from three separate implementations
   and comparing the streams.  The RC4 implementations used are
   Libgcrypt 1.4.4 [LIBGCRYPT], Nettle 2.0 [NETTLE], and a custom
   implementation.

   The document contains test vectors for two different keys:

   Key 1:  The key byte index (starting on one), that is: 0x01, 0x02,
      0x03, 0x04,...

   Key 2:  Generated by hashing the string "Internet Engineering Task
      Force" with the SHA-256 [SHS] [RFC4634] hash function, using the
      following command:

      $ echo -n "Internet Engineering Task Force" | sha256sum
      1ada31d5cf688221c109163908ebe51debb46227c6cc8b37641910833222772a

   The generated string has also been verified using the SHA-256 hash
   function implementation in OpenSSL (versions 0.9.8l and 1.0.0a)
   [OPENSSL].

   The digest that is generated is then truncated to the appropriate
   length, keeping the Least Significant Bit (LSB) part of the digest as
   the key.

Strombergson & Josefsson      Informational                     [Page 2]
RFC 6229         Test Vectors for the Stream Cipher RC4         May 2011

   The key lengths used in this document are 40, 56, 64, 80, 128, 192,
   and 256 bits, respectively.  The stream offsets used in this document
   are 0, 256, 512, 768, 1024, 1536, 2048, 3072, and 4096 bytes,
   respectively.  Offset 1536 corresponds to recommendations in
   [RFC4345].  The offsets 768 and 3072 correspond to recommendations in
   [SANS].

2.  Test Vectors for RC4

 Key length: 40 bits.
 key: 0x0102030405
Test Vectors for the Stream Cipher RC4RFC 6229

Test Vectors for the Stream Cipher RC4
RFC 6229
