METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR ADVANCED BYTE-ORIENTED SYMMETRIC KEY BLOCK CIPHER WITH VARIABLE LENGTH KEY AND BLOCK

A method and apparatus for an advanced byte-oriented symmetric key cipher for encryption and decryption, using a block cipher algorithm. Different block sizes and key sizes are supported, and a different sub-key is used in each round. Encryption is computed using a variable number of rounds of mixing, permutation, and key-dependent substitution. Decryption uses a variable number of rounds of key-dependent inverse substitution, inverse permutation, and inverse mixing. The variable length sub-keys are data-independent, and can be precomputed.