Fast evaluation, weights and nonlinearity of rotation-symmetric functions

Abstract We study the nonlinearity and the weight of the rotation-symmetric ( RotS ) functions defined by Pieprzyk and Qu. We give exact results for the nonlinearity and weight of 2-degree RotS functions with the help of the semi-bent functions and we give the generating function for the weight of the 3-degree RotS function. Based on the numerical examples and our observations we state a conjecture on the nonlinearity and weight of the 3-degree RotS function.