Text encryption device based on a chaotic random bit generator

Nowadays, the need of information security has become more prevalent than the past, due to the fact that especially in open networks, there is a potential risk of making sensitive information, such as military orders, medical files and personal data vulnerable to unauthorized interceptions. The development of robust cryptographic schemes is thus essential to the provision of information security. During the last decade an interesting relationship between cryptography and chaos theory has been developed. Consequently, several chaos-based cryptosystems have been put forward. In this context, this work presents a text message encryption device, which is based on a Chaotic Random Number Generator (CRNG). This device is realized with a simple microcontroller board, a small keyboard, a USB port and a LCD display. As a chaotic system, the well-known Chua system is chosen due to its rich dynamical behavior. The proposed CRBG, which is very easily implemented, uses the X-OR function in order to achieve better results concerning the “randomness” of the produced bits sequence. The quality of the produced random number sequences is tested by the FIPS-140-2 statistical suite. The satisfactory results from the use of the aforementioned statistical tests, in regard to other previous works, confirm the feasibility of the proposed text encryption device.