{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,12]],"date-time":"2025-10-12T02:21:20Z","timestamp":1760235680032,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":21,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"18","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,17]],"date-time":"2021-09-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1631836800000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000830","name":"North Atlantic Treaty Organization","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["NATO SPS G5448"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["NATO SPS G5448"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000830","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>A prefix code, a P-code, is a code where no codeword is a prefix of another codeword. In this paper, a symmetric cipher based on prefix codes is proposed. The simplicity of the design makes this cipher usable for Internet of Things applications. Our goal is to investigate the security of this cipher. A detailed analysis of the fundamental properties of P-codes shows that the keyspace of the cipher is too large to mount a brute-force attack. Specifically, in this regard we will find bounds on the number of minimal P-codes containing a binary word given in advance. Furthermore, the statistical attack is difficult to mount on such cryptosystem due to the attacker\u2019s lack of information about the actual words used in the substitution mapping. The results of a statistical analysis of possible keys are also presented. It turns out that the distribution of the number of minimal P-codes over all binary words of a fixed length is Gaussian.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s21186236","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,22]],"date-time":"2021-09-22T03:47:35Z","timestamp":1632282455000},"page":"6236","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["A Cipher Based on Prefix Codes"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"21","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3701-3468","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Otokar","family":"Gro\u0161ek","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Ilkovi\u010dova 3, 812 19 Bratislava, Slovakia"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9767-7728","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Viliam","family":"Hromada","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Ilkovi\u010dova 3, 812 19 Bratislava, Slovakia"}]},{"given":"Peter","family":"Hor\u00e1k","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, University of Washington, Tacoma, WA 98402, USA"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,9,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Adamek, J. 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