Some applications of source coding in cryptography

It is shown that the techniques of source coding (or "data compression") can be usefully applied in cryptography. Five source coding schemes (Shannon- Fano coding, Huffman coding, Lynch-Davisson coding, Elias-Willems coding, and Lempel-Ziv coding) are reviewed and their characteristics delineated. It is then shown how the last three of these schemes, which are of the universal source coding type, can be advantageously used to create strongly-ideal ciphers, to perform "universal" homophonic substitution, to test random bit generators, and to strengthen running-key generators for stream ciphers.

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