How does a stream cipher work?

• A stream cipher works roughly like a one-time pad.

• Just as in one-time pad, it can be broken if (A) you have insight into what the pad looks like, or if (B) the pad is used multiple times.

• The difference is that the “pad” in a stream cipher is not random, but pseudorandom - called a “keystream”.

• The pad/keystream essentially comes from a PRNG, which is seeded by (secret key + nonce).

• So the PRNG seed has a constant secret half (the secret key), and a changing public half (the nonce).

• The constant secret half (the key) prevents the first kind of breakage (A: attacker having insight into the pad).

• The changing public half (the nonce) prevents the second kind of breakage (B: the pad being used multiple times).

I wrote this because I felt like it. This post is my own, and not associated with my employer.