Hawkynt

Pike (DarkCrypt)

Lagged-Fibonacci stream cipher with three add-with-carry registers of lengths 55, 57 and 58 words; each step, registers whose carry bit matches the majority of all three clock and output the sum of two lag-separated words, and the three outputs are XORed into one keystream word. From the DarkCrypt Total Commander plugin build.

Properties

Property	Value
Category	Stream Ciphers
Sub-category	Stream Cipher
Security status	🎓 Educational Only
Complexity	Advanced
Inventor	Ross Anderson
Year	1994
Origin	🇬🇧 United Kingdom
Source	algorithms/stream/darkcrypt-pike.js

Parameters

Parameter	Supported values
Key sizes	64 bytes (512 bits)
Block sizes	1 byte (8 bits) to 65536 bytes (524288 bits)

Security

Status: 🎓 Educational Only

Known vulnerabilities

Issue	Description	Mitigation
Unanalyzed construction	Lagged-Fibonacci design with weaker public cryptanalysis than mainstream stream ciphers of similar age; not recommended for real use.	Use a vetted stream cipher.

Documentation

• DarkCrypt plugin (Total Commander PlugRing)
• FISH and Pike stream ciphers (background and history)

Test vectors

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

Vector 1 — DarkCrypt Pike - 64-byte key keystream

Field	Value
key	000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f 101112131415161718191a1b1c1d1e1f 202122232425262728292a2b2c2d2e2f 303132333435363738393a3b3c3d3e3f
input	00000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000000
expected	35d6782712939f32ec285eb4bb2d69ca 9b40f741c877ada8dcc7f3621c46f25c 41ff7dae6fee4983a225f7007beb26fd 038138499fbef54e310d899ccbe82193 f1cba7645c56cf82fc582a3527662d08 5d269059929eb783f1953d7dad93ad70 3e77943c37cb50be8a4aeb3cfacb3365 c10e4f6ffe45b7d9ef09aaf4b45ab7da

Vector 2 — DarkCrypt Pike - incrementing plaintext

Field	Value
key	000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f 101112131415161718191a1b1c1d1e1f 202122232425262728292a2b2c2d2e2f 303132333435363738393a3b3c3d3e3f
input	000102030405060708090a0b0c0d0e0f 101112131415161718191a1b1c1d1e1f 202122232425262728292a2b2c2d2e2f 303132333435363738393a3b3c3d3e3f
expected	35d77a2416969935e42154bfb72067c5 8b51e552dc62bbbfc4dee979005bec43 61de5f8d4bcb6fa48a0cdd2b57c608d2 33b00a7aab8bc3790934b3a7f7d51fac

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