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Hermes: A Reversible Language for Writing Encryption Algorithms (Work in Progress)

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Perspectives of System Informatics (PSI 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 11964))

Abstract

We describe the programming language Hermes, which is designed for writing private-key encryption algorithms. Specifically, every program written in Hermes is reversible: It can run equally well forwards and backwards. This means that you only write the encryption algorithm and get the decryption algorithm for free. Hermes also ensures that all variables are cleared after use, so the memory will not contain data that can be used for side-channel attacks. Additionally, to prevent side-channel attacks that extract information from running times, control structures that may give data-dependent execution times are avoided.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. DIKU, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 5, 2100, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Torben Ægidius Mogensen

Authors
  1. Torben Ægidius Mogensen
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Correspondence to Torben Ægidius Mogensen .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Microsoft Research, Redmond, WA, USA

    Nikolaj Bjørner

  2. AP Ershov Institute of Informatics Systems, Novosibirsk, Russia

    Irina Virbitskaite

  3. School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Andrei Voronkov

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Mogensen, T.Æ. (2019). Hermes: A Reversible Language for Writing Encryption Algorithms (Work in Progress). In: Bjørner, N., Virbitskaite, I., Voronkov, A. (eds) Perspectives of System Informatics. PSI 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11964. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37487-7_21

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37487-7_21

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37486-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37487-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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