Monte Carlo Tree Search for automatic differential characteristics search: application to SPECK

ePrint Report: Monte Carlo Tree Search for automatic differential characteristics search: application to SPECK

Emanuele Bellini, David Gerault, Matteo Protopapa, Matteo Rossi

The search for differential characteristics on block ciphers is a difficult combinatorial problem. In this paper, we investigate the performances of an AI-originated technique, Single Player Monte-Carlo Tree Search (SP-MCTS), in finding good differential characteristics on ARX ciphers, with an application to the block cipher SPECK. In order to make this approach competitive, we include several heuristics, such …

application automatic block ciphers eprint report monte carlo player problem report search single