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A Note on the Use of Margins to Compare Distinguishers

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Constructive Side-Channel Analysis and Secure Design (COSADE 2014)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 8622))

Abstract

Relative distinguishing margins are becoming a popular measure for comparing distinguishers. This paper presents some examples that show that this measure, although informative and intuitively sound, should not be taken alone as benchmark of distinguishers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We note that the distinction between theoretical distinguishing margins and distinguishing margins is orthogonal to the observations in this paper, and the consequences affect both.

  2. 2.

    Up to a typo in the caption of Fig. 2 in [12].

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Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. This work was supported in part by the Research Council of KU Leuven: GOA TENSE (GOA/11/007), by the Flemish Government FWO G.0550.12N and by the Hercules Foundation AKUL/11/19. Oscar Reparaz is funded by a PhD Fellowship of the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (FWO). Benedikt Gierlichs is Postdoctoral Fellow of the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders (FWO).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering-ESAT/COSIC and iMinds, KU Leuven, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, 3001, Leuven-Heverlee, Belgium

    Oscar Reparaz, Benedikt Gierlichs & Ingrid Verbauwhede

Authors
  1. Oscar Reparaz
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  2. Benedikt Gierlichs
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  3. Ingrid Verbauwhede
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Correspondence to Oscar Reparaz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. FNISA, Paris, France

    Emmanuel Prouff

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Reparaz, O., Gierlichs, B., Verbauwhede, I. (2014). A Note on the Use of Margins to Compare Distinguishers. In: Prouff, E. (eds) Constructive Side-Channel Analysis and Secure Design. COSADE 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8622. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10175-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10175-0_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-10174-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10175-0

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