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Abstract bits keys [2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17]. The most com-
mon classification of encryption techniques can be shown
Internet and networks applications are growing very fast, in Figure 1.
so the needs to protect such applications are increased.
Encryption algorithms play a main role in information
security systems. On the other side, those algorithms con- Cryptography
sume a significant amount of computing resources such as
CPU time, memory, and battery power. This paper pro-
vides evaluation of six of the most common encryption
Public-key Private-key Protocols
algorithms namely: AES (Rijndael), DES, 3DES, RC2,
Blowfish, and RC6. A comparison has been conducted
for those encryption algorithms at different settings for
each algorithm such as different sizes of data blocks, dif- RSA& Others
Block Stream
ferent data types, battery power consumption, different
key size and finally encryption/decryption speed. Exper-
imental results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness RC4& Others
of each algorithm. BlowFish &Others AES RC6
Keywords: 3DES, AES, blowfish, computer security,
DES, encryption techniques, RC2, RC6
Figure 1: Overview of the field of cryptography
1 Introduction
This paper examines a method for evaluating perfor-
Many encryption algorithms are widely available and used mance of selected symmetric encryption of various al-
in information security [8, 9, 10]. They can be categorized gorithms. Encryption algorithms consume a significant
into Symmetric (private) and Asymmetric (public) keys amount of computing resources such as CPU time, mem-
encryption. In Symmetric keys encryption or secret key ory, and battery power. Battery power is subjected to
encryption, only one key is used to encrypt and decrypt the problem of energy consumption due to encryption al-
data. In Asymmetric keys, two keys are used; private and gorithms. Battery technology is increasing at a slower
public keys. Public key is used for encryption and private rate than other technologies. This causes a “battery gap”
key is used for decryption (e.g. RSA and ECC). Public [1, 12]. We need a way to make decisions about energy
key encryption is based on mathematical functions, com- consumption and security to reduce the consumption of
putationally intensive and is not very efficient for small battery powered devices.
mobile devices [4, 6, 14]. There are many examples of This study evaluates six different encryption algo-
strong and weak keys of cryptography algorithms like rithms namely; AES, DES, 3DES, RC6, Blowfish, and
RC2, DES, 3DES, RC6, Blowfish, and AES. RC2 uses RC2. The performance measure of encryption schemes
one 64-bit key. DES uses one 64-bits key. Triple DES will be conducted in terms of energy, changing data types
(3DES) uses three 64-bits keys while AES uses various - such as text or document, Audio data and video data-
(128,192,256) bits keys. Blowfish uses various (32-448); power consumption, changing packet size and changing
default 128bits while RC6 is used various (128,192,256) key size for the selected cryptographic algorithms.
International Journal of Network Security, Vol.10, No.3, PP.213–219, May 2010 214
Figure 9: Time consumption for decrypt different audio Figure 11: Time consumption for encrypt different video
files files
5 Conclusions
This paper presents a performance evaluation of selected
symmetric encryption algorithms. The selected algo-
rithms are AES, DES, 3DES, RC6, Blowfish and RC2.
Several points can be concluded from the Experimental
results. Firstly; there is no significant difference when the
results are displayed either in hexadecimal base encoding
or in base 64 encoding. Secondly; in the case of changing
packet size, it was concluded that Blowfish has better per-
Figure 13: Time consumption for decrypt different video formance than other common encryption algorithms used,
files followed by RC6. Thirdly; we find that 3DES still has low
performance compared to algorithm DES. Fourthly; we
find RC2, has disadvantage over all other algorithms in
terms of time consumption. Fifthly; we find AES has bet-
ter performance than RC2, DES, and 3DES. In the case
of audio and video files we found the result as the same
as in text and document. Finally -in the case of changing
key size - it can be seen that higher key size leads to clear
change in the battery and time consumption.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank anonymous reviewers for
their valuable comments and suggestions that improve the
presentation of this paper.
[7] S. Hirani, Energy Consumption of Encryption Diaa Salama Abd Elminaam was born on November
Schemes in Wireless Devices Thesis, University of 23, 1982 in Kafr Sakr, Sharkia, Egypt. He received the
Pittsburgh, Apr. 9,2003, Retrieved Oct. 1, 2008. B.S from Faculty of Computers &Informatics, Zagazig
(http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=383768) University, Egypt in 2004 with grade very good with
[8] M. S. Hwang and C. Y. Liu, “Authenticated encryp- honor, and obtains master degree in information system
tion schemes: current status and key issues,” Inter- from faculty of computers and information, menufia
national Journal of Network Security, vol. 1, no. 2, university, Egypt in 2009. He is working in Higher Tech-
pp. 61-73, 2005. nological Institute, 10th of Ramadan city as teaching
[9] M. H. Ibrahim, “A method for obtaining deni- assistance at Faculty of Computer and informatics. He
able public-key encryption,” International Journal of majors in Cryptography and Network Security. (Mobile:
Network Security, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 1-9, 2009. +20166104747; e-mail:ds desert@yahoo.com)
[10] M. H. Ibrahim, “Receiver-deniable public-key en-
cryption,” International Journal of Network Secu- H. M. Abdul-kader obtained his B. S. and M. SC.
rity, vol. 8, no. 2, pp. 159-165, 2009. (by research) both in Electrical Engineering from the
[11] S. Z. S. Idrus, and S. A. Aljunid, “Performance anal- Alexandria University, Faculty of Engineering, Egypt
ysis of encryption algorithms text length size on web in 1990 and 1995 respectively. He obtained his Ph.D.
browsers,” IJCSNS International Journal of Com- degree in Electrical Engineering also from Alexandria
puter Science and Network Security, vol. 8, no.1, pp. University, Faculty of Engineering, and Egypt in 2001
20-25, Jan. 2008. specializing in neural networks and applications. He is
[12] K. McKay, Trade-offs between Energy and Security currently a Lecturer in Information systems department,
in Wireless Networks Thesis, Worcester Polytechnic Faculty of Computers and Information, Menoufya Uni-
Institute, Apr. 2005. versity, Egypt since 2004. He has worked on a number
[13] K. Naik, “Software implementation strategies for of research topics and consulted for a number of orga-
power-conscious systems,” Mobile Networks and Ap- nizations. He has contributed more than 30+ technical
plications, vol. 6, pp. 291-305, 2001. papers in the areas of neural networks, Database ap-
[14] P. Ruangchaijatupon, and P. Krishnamurthy, “En- plications, Information security and Internet applications.
cryption and power consumption in wireless LANs-
N,” The Third IEEE Workshop on Wireless LANs, Mohiy Mohamed Hadhoud Dean, Faculty of Com-
pp. 148-152, Newton, Massachusetts, Sep. 27-28, puters and Information, head of Information Technology
2001. Department, Menoufia University, Shebin Elkom, Egypt.
[15] B. Schneier, The Blowfish Encryption Algo- He is a member of National Computers and Informat-
rithm, Retrieved Oct. 25, 2008. (http://www. ics Sector Planning committee, University training super-
schneier.com/blowfish.html) visor. He graduated, from the department of Electron-
[16] A. Sinha, A. P. Chandrakasan, and JouleTrack, “A ics and Computer Science, Southampton University, UK,
web based tool for software energy profiling,” Pro- 1987. Since 2001 till now he is working as a Professor
ceedings of the 38th Design Utomation Conference, of Multimedia, Signals and image processing and Head
pp. 220-225, DAC Las Vega, US, 2001. of the department of Information Technology (IT), He
[17] W. Stallings, Cryptography and Network Security, was nominated by the university council for the national
Prentice Hall, pp. 58-309, 4th Ed, 2005. supremacy award, years 2003, and 2004. He is the recipi-
[18] A. A. Tamimi, Performance Analysis of Data ent of the university supremacy award for the year 2007.
Encryption Algorithms, Retrieved Oct. 1, 2008. He, among others are the recipient of the Most cited pa-
(http://www.cs.wustl.edu/∼jain/cse567-06/ftp/ per award form the Digital signal processing journal, Vol.
encryption perf/index.html) 18, No. 4, July 2008, pp. 677-678. ELSEVIER Publisher.
[19] A. Nadeem, “A performance comparison of data en- Prof. Hadhoud has published more than 110 papers in in-
cryption algorithms,” IEEE Information and Com- ternational journals, international conferences, local jour-
munication Technologies, pp. 84-89, 2006. nals and local conferences. His fields of Interest: Digital
[20] Results of Comparing Tens of Encryption Algorithms Signal Processing, 2-D Adaptive filtering, Digital Image
Using Different Settings- Crypto++ Benchmark, Re- Processing, Digital communications, Multimedia applica-
trieved Oct. 1, 2008. (http://www.eskimo.com/ wei- tions, and Information security and data hiding.
dai/benchmarks.html)