Hawkynt

CIPHERUNICORN-A (DarkCrypt)

CIPHERUNICORN-A block cipher (NEC Corporation, 2000, CRYPTREC-evaluated), 256-bit key variant, as implemented in the DarkCrypt Total Commander plugin. 16-round Feistel network with a dual main-stream/temporary-key-generation round function.

Properties

Property	Value
Category	Block Ciphers
Sub-category	Block Cipher
Security status	🎓 Educational Only
Complexity	Expert
Inventor	NEC Corporation; DarkCrypt port by Alexander Myasnikov
Year	2000
Origin	🇯🇵 Japan
Source	algorithms/block/darkcrypt-unicorn-a.js

Parameters

Parameter	Supported values
Key sizes	32 bytes (256 bits)
Block sizes	16 bytes (128 bits)

Security

Status: 🎓 Educational Only

Known vulnerabilities

Issue	Description	Mitigation
Known key-schedule weakness	Published cryptanalysis identifies key-schedule-related key equivalences; not relevant to functional correctness here.	Use AES or another vetted, actively maintained cipher.

Documentation

• DarkCrypt plugin (Total Commander PlugRing)
• CIPHERUNICORN-A specification (CRYPTREC / NEC Corporation)

Test vectors

3 vectors ship with this algorithm and run in the test suite. Byte values are hexadecimal.

Vector 1 — DarkCrypt Unicorn-a — zero key/plaintext

Field	Value
key	0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
input	00000000000000000000000000000000
expected	350518d17ee209c39280abd6da976069

Vector 2 — DarkCrypt Unicorn-a — incrementing key/plaintext

Field	Value
key	000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f101112131415161718191a1b1c1d1e1f
input	000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f
expected	c6b097ac88291b7d9e3a0b081cadb1f0

Vector 3 — DarkCrypt Unicorn-a — shifted incrementing key/plaintext

Field	Value
key	0102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f101112131415161718191a1b1c1d1e1f20
input	101112131415161718191a1b1c1d1e1f
expected	051bb0914cdcfd4b7c7cc5d9ba9c2330

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